


We've only just begun.

by Bad_Dreems, Mz_Mere (Gelasia_Kidd)



Series: Dreamer's End [4]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Determination, Explanation on Brainz, Extensive World Building, Gen, Gun Violence, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, History, Horror, Long Awaited Answers, Magic Theory, Psychosis, Recovered Memories, Resets, Time Travel, tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:27:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 33
Words: 193,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22793986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bad_Dreems/pseuds/Bad_Dreems, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gelasia_Kidd/pseuds/Mz_Mere
Summary: Our lives are not our own. From the womb to the tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime, and every kindness, we birth our future.-Cloud Atlas
Series: Dreamer's End [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/962994
Comments: 53
Kudos: 12





	1. 00

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O̸h̷,̷ f̴̅̐a̶͑̉ť̷͋h̴̓̈́ë̶́͒r̶̋̕,̷ ̶t̵e̴l̸l̷ ̵m̷e̴.̵ ̶Do we get what we deserve?  
> ̵  
> ̶O̷h̸,̶ ̷w̵e̵ ̸g̶e̸t̷ ̴w̷h̴a̴t̷ ̸w̷e̸ d̴͒̈́ẻ̷̾s̵̬͑e̴͗͘r̶̚̕v̵̭͊e̶͂̆.̸̒̊  
> ̸̿̚  
> .̸  
> ̶  
> ̴̋͆  
> ̵̆͊Ẅ̷́̅å̴͛y̵ ̵down we go..

__

_Try to remember where it all fell down…_

_Where I was standing, when the lights went out_

  
  


Ｙｏｕ＇ｖｅ ｌｉｖｅｄ ａ ｌｉｆｅ ｏｆ ｓｉｎ．．. 

[The life of sin.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wu9C-DFswg)

Toriel was dead long before the mountain went with her, this was doubtless in every way and even she was convinced of her own demise. The screaming and agony had gone silent and the searing pain inside was no longer hurting. In this moment of comprehension she was unmistakably herself once more and no one else, unmistakably Toriel but unmistakably dead. The fact of this was reluctantly proven to her by the mound of her own dust sitting atop the ruined throne. It was strange being ‘dead’ like this, she still seemed like she existed when she knew she didn’t. All the sensations of being ‘alive’ didn’t apply anymore.

It wasn’t just her though, nothing here existed anymore either. Somehow she knew that nothing she saw was really there, everything that ‘was’ simply _wasn’t_ as they had been fed to the clutches of oblivion just like her. What really _was_ there for her though was this overwhelming sense of deja vu. She had been in this exact place before and couldn’t deny that… even though this wasn’t a real place. No, not the throne room. Not this piece of her deceased world suspended to her, but just being in this intermediate between reality and the claustrophobic nothingness. 

  
  


Despite everything that had just occurred, there was only one thing Toriel had on her mind.

**Brainz wasn’t there.**

  
  


The dust was the sole occupant of the throne, Brainz’s body was gone and so was the blood it had lost. There wasn’t a trace of him in this place… except for the red drops starting at the foot on the throne, they glimmered like rubies in the sun. Toriel followed the trail with her eyes just to catch a glimpse of the form retreating from this soot filled throne room. He had left her just as good as letting those large doors slam behind him, only this time Toriel had no intention of letting him leave her. She gave chase without so much as a word or a call to be ignored.

**_“ ᴛʜᴇʏ… ᴀʀᴇ ᴀʟʟ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. ᴛʜᴇʏ… ʟᴇꜰᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ʏᴏᴜ’ʀᴇ ᴛʀʏɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ.-”_ **

  
  


Outside, the destruction ripped the top half of the corridor away leaving it open to the black and storms above. Ashes fell down like snowflakes, aspiring to bury everything once more: one inch at a time. They didn’t dare cover up the blood, too aware that it couldn’t be hidden. Again, Toriel could only manage a peek before Brainz was gone: he was limping like he could barely stand… slowly creeping out of the open corridor. It didn’t matter how fast Toriel ran behind him, she couldn’t even find him once she found the top of the stairs. They seemed keen on descending into the center of the earth, but they never escaped the eyes of the storm aloft. It would’ve seemed impossible for someone so injured to hit them so fast, yet the red drops on every step begged to differ. 

She followed behind.

Deeper and deeper…

**D**

**O**

**W**

**N**

**T**

**H**

**E**

**R**

**A**

**B**

**B**

**I**

**T**

**H** ****

**O**

**L**

**E**

.  
  


.

.

The narrow descent seemed irritated.

_“-ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴏɴᴇ ʟᴇᴀᴅꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴇɴᴛᴇʀ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴜᴄᴋɪɴɢ ᴇᴀʀᴛʜ ᴛᴏᴏ?”_

Its voice was familiar, maybe she would’ve put it to something if the ashes didn’t mold the stairs into a slope. 

Toriel tripped...

**_Then it was all gone, in the epicenter of hell, a sea of lights and sounds drifting alongside pain and fear, all of it was left on the surface, it’s moonlight shrinking with distance above._ **

This was the second time she fell down, funny how both times brought her to the same spot. The throne room that surrounded her looked younger: the mounds of ashes were still on their way as a fire spread to all the flowers that still lived. The smoke filled the rest of the room, consuming anything to be seen. Toriel followed the rubies on the floor to escape, the smoke followed her and the room seemed to stretch along with it, turning the world into a tunnel of suffocating fumes. 

_“-ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴅɪᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇᴍ?!”_

**“ɪ ᴅɪᴅ ɴᴏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʙᴜᴛ ꜱᴇʟꜰʟᴇꜱꜱ ᴋɪɴᴅɴᴇꜱꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ᴀʟʟ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇᴍ! ɪ ɢᴀᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴀ ʜᴏᴍᴇ! ɪ ᴛʀᴇᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴍʏ ᴏᴡɴ ᴄʜɪʟᴅʀᴇɴ! ɪ ᴅɪᴅ ɴᴏᴛʜɪɴɢ ʙᴜᴛ ᴄᴏᴅᴅʟᴇ ᴛʜᴇᴍ** -”

It had gotten so worked up that it didn’t even notice it was. It's just that remembering hurt so much and it still gave it so much anguish. Especially when history was primed to repeat itself once more… 

**_“ʟɪꜱᴛᴇɴ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ꜰᴏᴏʟ! ɪ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ꜱᴇᴇɴ ɴᴏ ʟᴇꜱꜱ ᴛʜᴀɴ ᴇɪɢʜᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴍʏ ᴄʜɪʟᴅʀᴇɴ ᴅɪᴇ ʙᴇᴄᴀᴜꜱᴇ ᴏꜰ ʜɪᴍ! ɪᴛ ɢᴏᴇꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴀᴍᴇ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ᴛɪᴍᴇ, ɪ ʟᴇᴛ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ʟᴇᴀᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇɴ- ʜᴇ… ᴋɪʟʟꜱ ᴛʜᴇᴍ! ʜᴇ ᴋɪʟʟᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴇᴍ, ᴀɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜ , ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ɴᴏ ᴅɪꜰꜰᴇʀᴇɴᴛ, ʜᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴅᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴀᴍᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇʏ… ʜᴇ… ᴡɪʟʟ ᴋɪʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ”_ **

_“ ᴡʜᴏ?!”_

  
  


The smoke had cleared and the path ahead was open, the sounds shook everything to core. It sounded like a fight was occurring within the maw of the large hall to the left, something loud, something intense, a full blown war mutating judgement into retribution. It made Toriel look down at her claws and see the blood soaked into them, how it was never going to wash off. With the permanent soiling on her claws and soul still setting in, Toriel was extremely reluctant to walk into the room sounding off the chaos. The screaming had yet to return to prove her point. It wasn’t until she actually heard the yell that she ran to see inside: there was a different kind of yelling going on in there, the voice was all too familiar. 

On her way, she was greeted by a large and lonely gun sitting on the floor with its gold bullets all strung together and unused. For some strange reason she could feel the malice coming off of it even though it was just an intentionless weapon without a human to wield it. Inside of the hall though, there would be nothing but that kind of intent.

  
  
  


Toriel reared her head through the entrance and found a place that she had never stepped into before. The hall had been rolled back to far before her influence: most of the windows still remained and presented the sigil of the kingdom even through the fractures. There were fallen soldiers everywhere laying all throughout this large room, not a single one of them was touched by fire. She wouldn’t recognize any of these details though, not a single one would come to her mind. Toriel was too affixed by her husband: standing right before and between her from the mortality that bled onto the floor. 

It didn’t matter how she reacted to him, if she made a noise or not. It couldn’t have mattered because this wasn’t really _‘him’_. This was as much as Asgore as was looking at a photo of him for he was as still as one. The sounds of the scuffle still resonated through the echoing chamber as if unaware that the recollection had paused like this, an unabridged ambience of suffering and gunfire for the isolated moment. 

Despite being nothing more than a visage, it was still _him;_ Toriel was still seeing her spouse for the first time since she ran away from him over twenty years ago. It was… _strange_ to say the least, on top of the ‘strange’ that defined everything right now. But Asgore: The way he was hunched over like that, his trident, and the dust bursting out of his one claw, not to mention all the _holes_ in his back. Looking at all this death surrounding him in this blood soaked room: was this _really_ what he became? Toriel had once envisioned the hatred instilling in Asgore would bring him to something like this, but she could _never_ imagine what it would actually look like. The one really intense feeling that burned into her though: after seeing what happened to Brainz… No, it couldn’t be. 

**“ ᴀꜱɢᴏʀᴇ! ʜᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴋɪʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ʜᴇ ʜᴀꜱ ᴀʟʟ ᴏꜰ ᴍʏ ᴄʜɪʟᴅʀᴇɴ-”**

_“ᴀꜱɢᴏʀᴇ ʀɪɢʜᴛ? ᴄʜɪʟᴅ ᴍᴜʀᴅᴇʀɪɴɢ ꜰᴜᴄᴋ. ʜᴇ'ꜱ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ʜᴇʀᴇ ᴛᴏᴏ ʀɪɢʜᴛ? ɪꜰ ɪ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴀᴄʀᴏꜱꜱ ʜɪᴍ, ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ꜱᴇɴᴅ ʜɪᴍ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʀᴇɢᴀʀᴅꜱ ʙᴇꜰᴏʀᴇ ꜱᴘʟᴀᴛᴛᴇʀɪɴɢ ʜɪꜱ ʙʀᴀɪɴꜱ ᴀʟʟ ᴏᴠᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴇᴀʀᴇꜱᴛ ᴡᴀʟʟ.”_

She ran around to see who could have been smitten before the king, the chaos sounding from all around reached its peak with the screams crescendoing. What she saw though… Brainz wasn’t there. Where Asgore was looking, what he was staring down upon was a large pink jacket laying neatly folded on the floor. The thing was soaked in blood and sprinkled with dust, it looked like it had been through absolute hell: Toriel recognized it immediately. She’d seen Brainz sporting it when he returned to her… maybe now it was supposed to be some kind of representation of him? But where was he really?

Asgore though, when Toriel looked up and saw his face for the first time. There was something disturbingly familiar about it: the agape mouth frozen in some sort of cry with his fangs emphasized to threaten, the deep and sunken profile, but it was his _eyes_ that took the most attention. They gave off so much _rage_ and willful intention for harm. It was like witnessing him in shock all over again as the anger in his voice boomed through the halls with the desire for vengeance against humanity. It made Toriel feel fear then and she could feel it _now,_ fear for this ‘stranger’ of a monster shouting before her because it wasn’t the person she loved anymore. 

_“- ɪ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴀʟʟ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ‘ᴅᴏᴏᴍꜱᴅᴀʏ’ ᴘʟᴏᴛ. ɪᴛ ᴀʟʟ ᴇɴᴅꜱ ʜᴇʀᴇ! ɪ’ᴍ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ᴘᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀ ʀᴀʙɪᴅ_ **_ᴅᴏɢ!-”_ **

There was nothing left of him; just a desire to share the pain with everyone else… a hunger for death that consumed him. There was death in the old king’s eyes and there was death laying all around him. For some reason Toriel felt like she would find Brainz among the nameless soldiers, it wouldn’t have made much sense but she couldn’t help but look. She finally looked away from the monster and followed the more deferential trail of blood just to see the shoulder of the human disappearing through the entrance. She had just missed him again. Even as she was getting up and rearing to follow, Toriel was delayed of doing so. There was an unjust hesitation simmering around the jacket on the floor, she felt like she didn’t want to leave it… or that _it_ was trying to draw her closer. Somehow she managed to get moving, the fear of losing Brainz again would give her wings if she needed them. It was good that she was leaving this place as it was starting to become painful, misshapen scars were starting to tear into fresh cuts.

She left, looking out for the hobbling man retreating down the path. He was already gone and his trail of red stretched out as far as Toriel could see. No matter how fast she ran or how far she tried to look, there was nothing ahead. The walk twisted and contorted, it conformed into impossible shapes of arcane creation. All she could do was traverse it in hopes it went somewhere, it _had_ to, Brainz had to be going _somewhere._ Over the side of this long and winding trail was the ruined city that both he and Toriel had seen in their lifetimes. Such a vast plain of rubble and desolation with the few empty buildings that still had the integrity to stand after everything had been done. Yet even with the sordid events long passed, there was something going on in this newly appointed cemetery to thousands. Just shy of the limit to how far she could actually see, it looked like a limitless black curtain was being draped over the city. It wasn’t even motionless, buildings Toriel could just barely make out in the distance were gone after a minute. She wouldn’t have any intention of staying to figure out what that meant or what would happen when the darkness reached here, just as much of a desire to get away from it as she had to catch up with Brainz. 

But this path… it just kept stretching on and _on,_ the city did the same too. Toriel never emerged from the sight of this impending void inching ever so closer to her as she would never gain any distance away from it as the path she was forced to travel was ultimately parallel to the city. This wasn’t permanent and the end was near, it wanted to make damn sure she knew that. Something would happen when the blackness consumed all… perhaps it was nothing coming to bring everything to its proper rest. But the impending force, _that_ was nothing… it couldn’t exist in two places. This place, this walk wasn’t allowed to withhold such things, so much that a bloodied corpse lay within. 

It wasn’t really a surprise nor was it _new,_ Toriel had seen it already. Brainz was long gone before she showed up, she could tell by the blood that stayed and stagnated: no more to bleed. This wasn’t him anymore, it was just what he _was,_ it was so obvious by the droplets that continued even past the corpse. There was something to be pondered here though: the placement was way off, Toriel hadn’t taken ten steps into ‘New Home’ when her sorrows came to life… This experience hadn’t even backtracked through the house she was looking down on her failures. It became too apparent that this wasn’t the same corpse she gazed upon in life, because it wasn’t even a corpse at all. It was still moving… 

It had seemed Brainz wasn’t granted the opportunity to die as he had sought. He sat and waited so patiently to let the wounds take him away. Such avarice that would be, as they couldn’t kill what they couldn’t eat. The red ran from him, but his life never would.

_There was something specific he said whenever the topic became that kind of sordid. Something about the ‘choice’ that was never to be taken away from you, the way you chose to die. He was very adamant about that. Everything he had done was not to preserve himself, but to reserve the right to his own demise. How hard he fought, how long he kicked and screamed when in truth: he never had that choice in the first place._

He crawled… Brainz crawled away from the very exit he fought for. Asgore was completely gone, soul and all by the time Brainz slithered away from the barrier. He inched along with his own exposed insides scraping against an already blood soaked floor, he dragged himself all the way up here even with a stump for a hand. 

Toriel would try right away to help him but when she thought about it, Brainz wasn’t there to be saved. She couldn’t save him, not here not now. The principles of choices simply didn’t exist as this wasn’t a place to be shaped by them. It was already determined and what she saw now was no more Brainz than it was the most rudimentary display of suffering. This is just what he did before he died. She could hear him muttering through his shallow gurgles and gasps that spat more red from his mouth. They were nothing short of unintelligible, yet she could tell exactly what they were. He was begging for death. Begging, pleading, dreaming, _wishing_ for his end to come, for it to be _possible_ . He was in so much pain it made Toriel’s head spin. As if she could ignore this sight that inflicted similar aches to her heart; she couldn’t detract from the impact of what presented itself on Brainz’s perforated back. The damage and blood should have made it impossible to see, but the marking was above all of it: she and Brainz both bore the mark of the kingdom. This ancient thing that dared to appeal to her while this tortured soul writhed on… but _why??_ Why here, why _now?_ Why _HIM??_

There was no allowance to dwell here, for here was gone and _there_ had come in when nobody was looking. The city over the pass was now only yards deep, the black curtain had swallowed the rest of it. Suddenly, the defunct elevator was just around the corner and something was coming. Even Brainz stopped to look while his trail of smeared blood dried behind him. Toriel couldn’t hide from it, they had crept in slick as a snake before she knew it. Blurred shapes without color or form, the kind of demons who sulked in the obscurity vivid dreams cast upon them. They were right on top of Brainz now, nobody did anything. 

  
  


_“ＢＲＩＮＧ ＩＴ！！”_

  
  


The room burst with the cry. It came from Brainz and was as clear as anything, this guttural and strained demand. As if on a second wind, he leapt up to his feet despite the extreme damage to his form. Blood waterfalled from his mouth, red and blackened insides fell to the ground from his open stomach. No sooner did he do this, did Brainz produce a handgun with his sole extant mitt. No sooner did he do _this…_ That he was immediately met with the rapid strobing of countless flashes and the roar of thunder from the other party. He didn’t get to fire a single shot from his weapon. He was struck with bullet after bullet, he jolted and convulsed as varying chunks of his body were blasted away. _He never stopped screaming._

He emitted this ear splitting wail, logically impossible to make as his lungs were being ripped to pieces. _So much blood._ His yells did not dither: he invited, he beckoned, he _challenged_ them as they were attacking him. It wouldn’t **STOP,** it was like it _couldn’t_ stop, how long would this go on?! Toriel could feel every bullet as if she was the one being struck, there was no describing the pain felt. Suddenly, Brainz’s voice dropped sharply. He fell backwards, pushed with force by the persisting impact of the lead. His body displaced the pool of blood onto the walls when it hit the floor in a wet sounding _thud._ As the last of his utterances diminished as gurgles and croaks, there was one final sound he made before going quiet forever: a lone sob that resonated throughout the entire world as the brass casings rolled to a stop. Such a plaintive sound that jumped above the others… yet there was a degree of comfort in it. His death would have wrapped around him like a blanket, he got exactly what he wanted for once. Even though he had faced a blaze of gunfire and violence; his world ended not with a ‘bang’, but a whimper… 

Toriel would have cried for him if she remembered how. When what actually went down was so much worse than anything she could have imagined. That lone sound Brainz made, was so much worse than any feelings that could arise from seeing his own bloodied, _mangled_ corpse.

It wasn’t enough though, after the bells had stopped ringing, the blurred shapes approached all around the bloody mess of him. They fired their weapons into his still forehead a couple of times, just to make sure he was dead. Then they left… They were gone just like that. They did a fade on Toriel and left Brainz’s still warm remains behind like he was nothing but garbage on the side of the street. Now she never would have taken her eyes off of him if she had the chance but the impending nothingness could not be ignored any further as everything beyond the path Toriel and Brainz occupied was gone. It had reached them and had no intentions of stopping here, inch by inch it seeped into the red soaked ground to erase it just like everything else. Brainz was soon gone but not truly. His corpse vanished but Toriel saw beyond the place where the shapes came from that Brainz was back at it and on his feet, retreating away with a limp and leaving behind his scant blood drops. She would be back at her pursuit too, the path she left behind would cease to exist shortly after she left. 

_Oh_ , how there would be things to see: corridors that lead to the wrong rooms, places that never appeared again on the second glance, walls that shifted, floors that moved, all spattered with blood. It seemed Brainz was always one room ahead of Toriel, almost that he was leaving them behind. Some rooms contained the same kind of ‘picture perfect’ depictions of what the walls witnessed, of what Brainz witnessed: Perilous dangers sitting in the way, soldiers armed with intent and firearms, _monsters_ conformed and contorted into nightmares. Most of them involved gunfire but in any case, all of them involved yelling. 

Eventually she was met with a bridge of fire and this _terrible_ cry resonated from it. There was some kind of body or shape standing before it, something small and yellow. It dissipated into the air when she arrived though, when she saw what it was looking at. What Toriel saw was a monster of blue scales and bright red hair trapped in this perpetual motionless fall onto the scorched lumber. A cloud of red dust paused its emergence from the head that twisted the wrong way around the monster’s neck. Strangely, the pink jacket from the Judgement Hall was here too, sitting neatly folded on top of the burning bridge oblivious to the fire.

  
  


Toriel felt _sick._ Being here made her feel so ill and the air was so _heavy,_ it was so hostile yet… almost mournful. It was like she could feel it influencing her- everything was so hazy. The sounds of battle echoed all around, laden with shouts of fury and cries of pain. Ownerless profanities screamed out. She should’ve known Brainz would fight like this, there was no way his presence wouldn’t have brought this on. Obviously too… He had won this one. There was almost as much hate present as the judgement hall… but not a lot of intent which was odd because it sure _sounded_ like he had the intent to do this. 

Somehow, Toriel had walked across the bridge without acknowledging it or the flames that consumed it. When she tried to turn back, both the monster and the jacket were gone: the scene had ended and the actors left the stage. Leaving it for the impending darkness to clean it up. It was time to move on down the sole corridor. 

Of course it didn’t take long before she heard more yelling, it reached her from afar and echoed back. At this point, discerning Brainz’s voice was quite easy to do: he had a very distinctive way that he spoke. Honestly, it was that recognizable fury that Toriel recognized the most. In a strange way though, it was almost comforting that she wasn’t the only one who set him off that much. She could hear him threatening someone. 

_“ᴡʜʏ ᴅᴏɴ’ᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ꜰᴜᴄᴋɪɴɢ ᴛᴇʟʟ ᴍᴇ?! ʜᴜʜ?! ᴛᴇʟʟ ᴍᴇ, ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴏᴛʜᴇʀꜰᴜᴄᴋᴇʀ! ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ꜰᴜᴄᴋɪɴɢ ᴛᴇʟʟ ᴍᴇ, ᴏʀ ᴀʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ꜱɪᴛ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ꜱᴛᴜᴘɪᴅ ꜰᴜᴄᴋɪɴɢ ꜱᴍɪʟᴇ?! ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ꜰᴜᴄᴋɪɴɢ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴏᴠᴇʀ ᴛʜɪꜱ ʀᴏᴄᴋ, ᴀɴᴅ ɪ’ʟʟ_ **_ᴍᴀᴋᴇ_ ** _ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴇʟʟ ᴍᴇ!”_

It looked like there was a doorway up ahead, maybe it was where the yells came from. Suddenly though, it sounded like a firecracker had gone off from within, its loud and abrupt **_*POP*_ **would make anybody jump. Then without warning… or maybe to answer for this noise, Brainz emerged from this doorway and howled angrily.

_“- ɪ ᴅɪᴅɴ’ᴛ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛʜɪɪ-ɪɪɪɪɪɪɪɪ-ɪɪɪɪɪɪꜱ!!!!!!!”_

He skittered away, leaving Toriel to view upon a grizzly sight. 

‘Gerson…’ 

Of all the people, it was _Gerson_ who was on the receiving end of the violence. Toriel stepped into the small room just to see the old monster falling onto his shell and going very limp on the floor. Knowing his fate already, this shouldn’t have been the surprise that it was. Brainz had struck Gerson just as he would in every instance of battle he stumbled into. It was over so fast, too. The air had _flared_ with rage and the moment Gerson fell, the anger was gone and overtaken by overwhelming disgust and sorrow. These were just the same feelings Toriel had felt when she took that ‘bullet’ back at her home, it didn’t feel any better that she could tell what they were now and how often Brainz felt them. 

If anything, this felt magnitudes worse than seeing Asgore did. All the feelings had lined up, but there was far less intent to this one. Gerson wasn’t restrained to a photo either, it was like a movie playing over and over: he fell again and again from the same blow… But he never turned to dust, he only went very still. **He fell down.** Brainz didn’t actually _kill_ him. Sure, what he did caused Gerson to fall down… but that would have had to mean that if it wasn’t Brainz, _anything_ could have done the same as the monster’s HOPE was so weak. 

  
  


_“-revenge is a- terrible …..thing…”_

  
  


Brainz never meant to do it, it wouldn’t feel so _wrong_ if he did. With how fast he had run away, this was an accident. But _why_ did he do it then? 

  
  


_Why did you run away then? You never meant to_ **_do_ ** _it, it wouldn’t feel so_ **_wrong_ ** _if you did. You left them all behind in the clutches of the_ **_deranged king_ ** _you were so keen to condemn. You just kept running until it was too late to turn back._

The air became judgemental, it persecuted her relentlessly. It felt like a thousand sins glared at her from unseen places, they knew her weak spots and how to exploit them. She was guilty as hell and knew it. 

Toriel suddenly snapped.

“Because I felt _threatened!_ Everything else was _too much_ for me to bear and then he did this to me. I did not know what else to _do!_ I never _meant_ to do it! **_LEAVE ME ALONE!!”_ **

  
  
  
  


_“ᴛʜɪꜱ ꜱʜɪᴛ ɪꜱ ᴡʜʏ ɪ’ᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇꜱ… ɪ ꜰᴜᴄᴋɪɴɢ ʜᴀᴛᴇ ᴍʏꜱᴇʟꜰ ꜱᴏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛɪᴍᴇꜱ...”_

If she knew about this… she never would have made him make the promise to her. How much damage it had caused him, how much self loathing they both shared. 

“You were scared… You had nobody to turn to. You never intended for this finality, but you were forced into it…”

At that moment, she was able to relate to Brainz… it made her feel worse.

  
  


There was no sense staying here any longer. With all these emotions stagnating in the air, it was so conflicting. It was easier for Toriel to just leave it all behind rather than to try and make it better. She was getting good at doing that. Funny enough, the last thing she saw of the passed scene was the pink jacket sitting ever so neatly on the bare store counter. 

Since the burning bridge, the path had started a rather sharp decline. While it was always open to the blank sky above, it was distancing itself from the dull light. Farther and farther it strayed from hope and heaven, darker and darker it seemed to become. The angle would become so steep that it was impossible to go back, all you could do was keep going-

**Down…**

**Down…**

**Down…**

  
  


Deeper and deeper it went. The descent was studded with similar vicarious occurrences from Brainz. The outcomes and implications worsened as the path delved deeper into him. The bad feelings worsened and Toriel never stopped feeling persecuted. It was like something was watching her from aloft… but the sky was no longer visible to her when she looked up. It soon developed that there was nothing but darkness wherever she looked. As the points of Brainz’s journey became ever so lower, darkness was that was foreseen. 

  
  


_“-ᴘᴜᴛᴛɪɴɢ ᴍᴇ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ꜱᴏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ᴛʀᴀᴜᴍᴀ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴇᴇ ʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ʙᴇꜰᴏʀᴇ ɪ ʙᴇɴᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱɴᴀᴘ ɪɴ ᴛᴡᴏ! ɪ ᴀᴍ ɪɴ ꜱᴜᴄʜ ᴀ ʟᴇᴠᴇʟ ᴏꜰ ᴘᴀɪɴ ʀɪɢʜᴛ ɴᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɪ ᴄᴀɴ'ᴛ ᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴄᴏᴍᴘʀᴇʜᴇɴᴅ ʜᴏᴡ ɪ'ᴍ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ꜱᴛᴀɴᴅɪɴɢ ʜᴇʀᴇ!"_

Down to the lowest points of this journey. The blackness followed closely behind, erasing everything as it overtook them. The pink jacket soon became the only thing of color Toriel would see. It would be the _first_ thing she saw, it was like a beacon for all the travestries she had to witness; It was there when she saw him mourning over a destroyed flowerpot, it was there when his maddened laughter haunted the lab as he spasmed on the floor before a screen filled with soldiers, and it was even there during Brainz’s most obvious display of self hatred: when he destroyed his own image in a large vanity mirror. 

  
  


_“-ɪ ꜰᴇᴇʟ ᴋɪɴᴅᴀ ꜱɪᴄᴋ ᴀᴄᴛᴜᴀʟʟʏ, ʙᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ’ꜱ ᴘʀᴏʙᴀʙʟʏ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ᴀ ꜱɪᴅᴇ ᴘʀᴏᴅᴜᴄᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴍᴇ ʜᴀᴛɪɴɢ ᴍʏꜱᴇʟꜰ…”_

  
  


Toriel really didn’t like Brainz hating himself, especially not when some of this hate was her fault and should have been directed to her… At the same time though, she was quite sure he still hated her well enough. His hatred for her was still young and warm, her own was old and dusty. They amalgamated together and created the demon that ushered forth the flames of judgement onto those soldiers. Now, it just felt cold and heavy: enveloping her like she was submerged in water again. Every movement struggled against her and she couldn’t see anything. Then came the pink beacon, shining through the ripples above. It was gone when Toriel surfaced from the pool of black water. 

She was assaulted by a furious scream that boomed through the flooded chamber. It hid behind towers of partially submerged refuse and continued to yell. 

  
  


“-ꜰᴜᴄᴋ …. ᴀʟʟ ᴏꜰ ʏᴏᴏᴏᴏᴏᴏᴜᴜᴜᴜ!!!”

It was angry, it was _hurting._ His screams hit her and the sensation was like stitches being slowly severed inside of her. As she tried to traverse the putrid sea of the dump, Toriel started to see red petaled flowers floating beside her. They grouped up, and she could see all their faces glaring at her. 

The flowers were soiled by the red clouds polluting the water. They were infected, _provoked_ by it. Another voice crept into her head: unfeeling and apathetic, it ignored her fears and told her over and over how the flowers weren’t really there. It was hard to believe it when she could actually _see_ them making faces and _ridiculing_ her. They were _laughing_ at her misfortune and exploiting her vulnerability. 

**_They surrounded_ ** **_Ḧ̵̢̠̠̙̫́͛̈́͘͠Ī̸̙̺̟Ṁ̴͔̳_ ** **_̷̢̮̻̼̠̅̽͆̿,HER a whirlwind of crimson faces, they continued to demean H̶̼͎̻͖̟̟͚̘̩̊̉̈́͐͑̕͜I̸͙̭̱͈̐̿̃̈́̄́̑̽͜M̵͎͕͒̑̑̚ HER._ **

There was no stopping them, they wouldn’t stop _laughing._ Why wouldn’t they _STOP?_

**_W̵̮͝h̵̭̒ỳ̴͎ ̷̱̚w̵̛̗o̵̪̾ủ̴̢ḷ̴̅d̴͔͝n̴̻̑'̸̖͘ṯ̵͗ ̶̪̍t̶̬̓h̴̰̊e̷̖͐ỹ̷̺ ̷̻̄s̴͚̈t̴̨̉ȯ̴̺p̸͓̍?̶̳̓ ̵̜̇W̶͔͌h̶̹͘y̶̹̕ ̴̳̊ḍ̴͝i̴̧̔d̴̩͋ ̸̹́t̵̠̏h̸̥͐e̶̩͆y̶̳͒ ̷̪͠f̸͔͆i̶̥͌n̸̜̋d̴͕̓ ̸͓͂í̶̞t̴̯̆ ̸͉̔s̶͙̏o̸̤̒ ̴̯͌F̴̣̍Ü̵̙N̸͍̉N̸̻̂Ý̵̜?̶̢͆ ̷̮̓_ **

**_̸̤̓T̸̛̺h̶̺̃e̵̳͌r̷͈͛e̶̗̐ ̷̯͊ẅ̵̤́a̷̧̅s̸̪̽ ̷̗̂n̸̰̄o̵͇̓t̴̨̓h̵̥͗į̶͋n̴̗̉g̵͎͝ ̴͚̋s̴͚̚h̷̟͂e̸͙̓ ̶͎͊c̴̩̆o̶͖̽u̷̩͆l̷̺͗d̷̖̈́ ̸̭̅D̶̞͝O̴̫̔ ̵̝̅a̵͖͝n̸͇͘d̵̯̕ ̴͉͗t̶̎ͅh̵̜͗e̶͝ͅ ̶͔̽s̷̢̈í̵̤r̴̢̿è̵͍n̴͉̽s̸̜̈́ ̶̰̉w̸̦̑e̶̤͑r̴̪̕e̷͔̿ ̸͉̆â̴͚l̵̛͖r̷̡̃e̵̢̅a̶̠͋ḓ̶̀ŷ̶̡ ̷̧̿o̷̩͌n̸̺̑ ̵̺̏t̶̬̽h̸̦͛e̵̻̚i̸̮͊r̵͙̂ ̴́͜w̷̥ā̴̤y̵̻,̵͜ ̴͔͌t̶̼͘h̷̡̓ẻ̷͕y̸̹̍ ̴̨͌w̸̛̞e̶̬͘r̷̗͝e̵̦͊ ̴̲͘s̶̤̃o̶͙̐ ̴̼̐C̷͎̈́L̴͎͘Ȏ̶̦S̷̰̓È̷̫.̵̮͝ ̶̥͝_ **

**_Why wouldn't they stop? Why did they find it so FUNNY?_ **

**_There was nothing he could DO and the sirens were already on their way, they were so CLOSE._ **

**_T̸͉̆h̷̘͒e̵̫͂ẙ̸̟ ̶̨̃ŵ̸̡e̷̤r̴̜͛e̷̞̾ ̴͈͊d̸̝͠r̴͚̈́u̸̻͝n̶̲͗k̵̺̔ ̷̛͉w̶͓̽i̶͖̊ṯ̶͊h̴̞͝ ̴̞̒t̸͊ͅh̵͇̾ê̴͓i̵̤͌ṟ̴́ ̷̹̇t̵̤͊e̵̪͠r̴̫͗r̸̘̈́i̷̡͛b̵̠̈́l̵͈̋ë̷̻ ̸̠͋ḻ̸̄a̶̛̲u̵̥͑ǧ̸͇h̶̪͂t̶̘͊e̷̡ṙ̴̖ ̷̙̿a̷͖̍n̷̼̈́d̵͓͑ ̶͕̄î̵̱t̶̤̉ ̶͜ō̷͍ń̵̻l̶̺y̵̫͝ ̵̗͐w̷̭̎o̶͈͂r̷̤̍s̶͉̀e̴͕͛ṋ̵̍ẹ̴̀d̴̠̚ ̷͓̚w̸̘̒h̸̦͌e̷͚̒n̸̙̒ ̵̘̕s̴̺ĥ̶̤ė̵͚ ̸̘̈s̴̨͐a̴̻̓w̴͇͠ ̵̮͠t̷̗̄h̵͓̕e̷̩͐ ̶̹̃h̶͉ō̷̪ṟ̴͝r̵̹̐i̷̥b̵̨͂l̶̛̟e̶̘̓ ̴̭̑s̴̮̽t̷̺͒ȃ̵͇t̴͔͑ě̷͓ ̷͖̂h̶͖̔ȇ̴̱ ̸͈̓ẅ̷̫ạ̵̋s̸͈͂ ̶̞͝ȉ̶̠n̸͖̄.̵͈̽ ̶̡͌B̴̮͊ụ̸͐t̵̼͠ ̶̗̉w̵̙͝h̵̨͑o̴̢͌ ̶̺́w̴̐ͅa̵̫s̸̥̑ ̴̳t̸̺̀h̴̨͘i̸͉ṣ̷͝?̷̤̆!̶̪̓ ̸͉͐W̸̗͆ḣ̵͜ó̷̭ ̸͈͠s̸̗̋t̴̹̑o̵͖̊ǫ̴͝ḓ̶̾ ̷͔̑b̶̟̿y̵̡͘ ̷̟ḧ̴̲́i̸̥͝s̶͙͛ ̶̞̔d̵̜̒r̸̭̾o̴͓͛w̵̪̽n̸̤̂e̷͍̔d̸̝̕ ̵͎̀c̴̗̊õ̸͍r̶̖͆p̸͖̀ś̴̥ẻ̷͔,̴͇͂ ̶̭͝w̶͙͘ḩ̵̕o̵̘̅ ̵̛͕ẇ̵͙ā̶̡s̵͎͝ ̴̼̃t̶͓͑h̴̞̒ǐ̴̯s̸͓̾ ̵̰p̶̬̆e̴̾ͅr̸̦̅s̴͎̅ȍ̷̺n̵͔̕?̴͉͐!̷̲͘_ **

**_B̴̭̞̿̐u̴̟̯̒t̸̹̀ ̶͓̱̒̄I̸͉'̸̛͕̠̑m̶̫͚̂͘ ̶̨͕̓̇n̸͇̉ó̴̞͠ṫ̷̛͎͉ ̸͎͒D̷̠̾̒Ė̷̯̗A̷͓͕͐D̸̨̙̂.̸̫̈́ ̴̨̑̾I̵̩̕ ̵̱͐f̶̹̮̐e̵̤͓̽e̷̮̱̅l̶͇̼̉ ̸͖͒͊p̵̮̑e̸̦̽r̷̡̪̚ḟ̴̰̼e̸̞̞̕ç̴̘̂t̶̖̝́l̸͉͍̎ẏ̶͈̅ ̷̣̒͝F̵͎̈ ̷̤͕̄͒Ï̵̪̊ ̶̦͆N̷͕̍ ̷̛̯̾E̷͖͖̋.̶͙͌_ **

**_̵͚͍̕͝Ë̶̘́v̶̗̉͑ḛ̸̢̚ṟ̵͇̾̅y̶͙̯͛ț̷͆̈́h̶̪̆i̸̡̺̓n̵̯͎͌̆g̶̨͔͒͂ ̶̣̐̔ͅị̸͓̚s̵̖̙̽̀ ̸̖́f̵̹̞̄̂i̴͈͇͋͒ń̵̰͠e̶̢̟͝.̴̰̱̐͌ ̸͚̹̈́͠_ **

**_̸̨̬̉E̵̺̋v̷̙̯̈́̄è̷̯͘r̶̡̤̕y̷͖͑͋ţ̴̌h̴͚̱̕i̵̳̋n̴͔̙͗͝g̴͎̉͘ ̸͈͆͝ȉ̴͍͋s̴̯̈̇ͅ ̶̹̰̐f̴͇̒i̸̜̒͌n̶̩͝͝e̵̟͌ͅ.̵͖̅ ̷̲̠̑_ **

**_̶̡̖̈E̶͇͐v̵̡͗̓ḛ̸͇̊̚r̶͑͜y̴̥̜͆̏ț̵͔̅h̴̜̉í̴̡̉n̵̆ͅg̶͔̕ ̷̥͗i̵͕̾̇s̶̜̋͘ ̵̮͒͝f̴̠̒͗i̶͔͎͋n̵̙̆̄e̶̬͘.̷̲̩̎́ ̶̮̋̆_ **

**_̵̮̽̒E̵̠͂͆v̴̛̱̯̔e̶̼̹͗̚r̶̯̠̃ẏ̵͇̗t̵̲̞h̷̝̒i̸̥̗͊̊n̸̬̄g̶͖͙̔ ̸̨̓i̶̟͊s̷̼̈́̐ ̵̟̱̓̊f̷ͅĭ̸̹͒n̵̟̙͝e̸͙̝͘.̷̢͍́ ̵̘̌̚_ **

**_̸͈̦̈̿E̶̜̘͌̅ṿ̷̈́e̷̤̎͠r̵͕̗̾y̸̓̔͜ẗ̸̨̪́̅h̴̤͒i̸̪͋n̴̨͍̋g̷̭̈ ̷̺̔̏i̷̛̫̔s̸̡̓ ̸͔̭̾͛f̷͚̖͆̓ȋ̶̞̓͜n̵̹͑̈́e̵̡͆.̶͍̤͊ ̵̙͆_ **

**_̸͚̬̈́̎E̸̹̓̎͜v̷̤͝ẽ̸̳͉̚r̶̖̟͒͌ŷ̴̫t̶͉̞̑͝ḧ̸͉͇́ȋ̷̜̒n̵̗̈́g̶̡̘̓ ̸͎͑͜i̷̬̺̒ș̴̦̈́ ̴̱̎f̶͔̔̑ḭ̸̛͈n̵̪̏͝e̵͖̚.̴͈̑̅ ̵͔̮̎̅_ **

**_̴̞̆̇E̴̝̗̓͒v̶̨̧͘e̷̺̐r̵͖̄ỵ̵͖̔t̶͍̿͑h̴͖͑i̷̳̲̚n̴̺̄g̵̞͙͊͑ ̸͙͛̊í̶͙̎s̷̨̡͐̒ ̵̱̙̎͗f̴͔͊i̶̮̒n̴̲̖͛̌e̶͎̐̏͜.̶͇͐̽ ̷̦̾_ **

**_̵̡̯̤̞̲̫̻͈͔̈́E̵̢̝̜̙̥͈̥͙̳͙̔v̵̡̛̼̳̘̘͓̥̣̭̗̲͚͙̘̯̭̐͐̉͌̃̊̒̍̆̒̀e̴̢̛̱̲̟͍͙̳̝͖̱̦̼͈̘̝͍̾͜͝ŗ̷̢̞͉͇͍̪̭̳͎͔̮͍̈͛́̓͂̉̂̓͆͋̈͠͝y̸̨̨̖̰̭̝͚͉̗͑̓̓̋̂̉̊ͅt̵̨̛͈̪̹̬͓̓͌̈́̐̏͗̄̆̽͊͝ͅͅh̴̡̻̙̘͔͇̭̜̘̼̱͐̉͌͒̂̐̎́̏͊͆͊̚͜͝͠͠i̷̭͓̺̻͆̐̿̆̌n̴̢̡̢̢̛̛͎̼̟̼̫͍͓͇͈̽̊̈́̇̄̇̒͘͝͠ģ̵̮̩̠̯̱̙̯͈̫̞̲̖̫͕̒́̅͠ ̷̛̟̱͎͙̏̎̃̐̂͐͒͌͘̕͝͠i̸̡̹̯̻͔̟̜̙̮̺̹͔͂̍͛̈́̇̕̚̚͝s̵̡͕͈͓͓̩̔̐̆͘ ̸̛͕͈͍̝̱̙̘̺͎͍̬̦̆̆͂̑̇̈͐͂͊̋̅͘f̷̥̘̣̥̖̙͓͔͉͐͜ͅͅỉ̴̢̼͉͍̲̬̼̹͕̺̹̏̅̌n̷̹̞̯̟̲͖͋̈́̐͆̿̑̽͝͠ȩ̸̧̖͓̬̹͇̭̣̭̠̯̪̗̙̋̐ͅ.̶͚̜̜̪͕̦̉̃͋́̒͋̍̚͝͝͝ͅ ̷̟̳͚̦͔̻͔̻͙̤̬͕̂́̿̈͂̑̊̉̌͂̈́̚̕͠͝_ **

**_̷͙̼̅̓͛̄͘̕Ę̸̛̛̜̘͓̼̰͈̮͍͓̞̗̫̜̱͎͂̎͒͑͂͂́͊̈́̕̕͝͝͝v̶̛͍̞̱̹̦̞̼̘̼̝̰͍͈̝̮̬̀͒̈̔̈́̓́͂͑͜͠ë̵̼̼̼͚̮̬͓̜̟̫̰͈́̈́̇͒̂̐̿͌͒͐̿̾̇̕̕͘͜͝͝r̴̡̧̜̮̜͎̖̘̻̼̼̳̺̗͙̈͂̒̎͂̅̌̐̏̋͝ͅỵ̸̧̘͖̟̭̭̮͉͇̂̓̆̃̉̑̉̚ẗ̷̛͎͙̺͕́̆̔͌̋́̿͑̋̌̊̚̚̚̚h̵͕͈̑̎ȉ̴̢̧̨̻͈͙̜̖̖͍̬͖̈́ͅn̷̳͎͔̯̹̻̲͋̒g̶̡̡̢̛̖̺̝̫̰̲̻̝̲̯̓̅̽̌͆̏͘ͅͅ ̵̯͉̠̯̰͚̘̫̠͎̣̺̣̺̮̗̿̋̽̈́̃͂͛̑̚͝ͅĭ̷̢̭̠̳̮̹̏̉̈͐͠s̵̢̫̖̮̮̦̖̖͑̉̾ ̸̨̽̈̿̏̔̄̓̃́̿̓̂̕f̶̛̠̤̝̳͚̣̼̠̞i̸̥̭̦̹̯̽͠n̶̩̈́̃e̴̡̛͚̖͎͔̝̰̐̿̓͗͒͜.̷̧̨̤̮̜͎̜̰͔̘̣̞̦̇̍̾͜ͅͅ ̷͇̘̫͓͖̖̭̆̏͋͋͗̿͛͛̽̾̄̈́͜͝͝͝ͅ_ **

**_̷̧̧̧̮̗̳̯̘̺͎͍̯̱͗̾͜͜͝Ę̴̣̺̳͕͇̰̼͓͎̹̼̘͍̣͈͛̈̀̐̂́̔̋́̌̿̈́̕͠ͅv̵̡̡͚̹̭̞̥̝̈́̓̒͗̑͒̓̑̕͝͝͝͝ȩ̵̢̟͈̥̯̻̫̰͓̰͚̔̓͊̚͝ͅȓ̸̡̳͕̺͈͍̤̜̣̕͜͝ý̵̟͙̹̙͙̟̹̖̞̜͈͎̼̥̺͗͠ţ̸̪̬͙̞̖̖̻͕̗̪̰̼̖̪̠̬͑͋̉̋̈̅̋̾̆͑͆̂̍̕̚h̶̪̓̓̆̑̃͐͝͠i̵̡̛̖̣̖̗̟̪̠̣̙̯͙͒̌͗̓́̈̆̆͛͆̇̕̕n̸͚̥̯͔̯̞̯͙͂̋̽̉͊̋͋̾̈́̓͐̈͗̂͠g̵̡̫̘͇̼̭̦͚̍̒́̌͜ ̵̨̹̘͕̲̘͎͗̏̌̄̅̒i̸̛̩̅̍̉̂́̀̄͑͠s̷̛̗̒̅̿̽̆͐̿͊̆̇͐̚̕͝ ̴̡̧̛̪̳͙̹̪̗̱̲͈̝̂̇̑̿́͊̏̃̎͐̏̚͘͝f̷̹̼̑̍͂̿̉̆ị̴̢̧̪̟͔̺͚̈́̌̚ņ̸̘͙̞̘̝͈̩̲͖̭̠̪͇͊e̷̛̳̲̱̹̗͉̤͍̯̰̟̟͇̳̻͓͆͒͆͛̊͒͑̑͆̈́̓̍̉̕͘͝ͅ.̴̨̰͍̙̳̟͖̙͔̭̟͇̣̘͔̝͈̈́̐̆̓̇͠ ̵̛̺̞̮̈́̉̂̑̓͂̋̎̐̉̋͜͜͠_ **

**_̶̬̥̐͌͒͝ͅE̷̬͙̻͉̞̱͈̪̤̘̜͔̥̜̙̜̯͂̄̅v̶̡̰̫̟͈̯͓̪̲̰̮͈͉̪̱͆̿̄̓̐̈́͘̚ȩ̸̥̟̱̗̞̳̜͉̟͈̼̫̱̯̔͆̒̽͂͋̔̄̓̒̈́̑̎͘͝r̵̤̟̲̭̰̼̖̄̋̃͋̿͋̈́̂̿̉̇͊͆̈̽̽͠ÿ̸͎̲͈͔͍̲̰͈̣̂t̶̛͙̤̿̐͊̉̌͆͛͋̅̓̌̀̕͘͝͝h̴̢̨̯̳̭͚͔̐͆͆̋̄͒̌̕̕͝i̸̧̝̖̪̮̖̼̩̼͎̗̮͈̗̬͕̅͗̚ͅn̶͈̩̼̎̍̀̒́̌̇͑͌̕̕͠͠g̷͖̪̞̱̲̀̊͗̆̌̏͗̑ ̶̧̧̮͈̙͖̫̱̘̝͍̫͈̣͉̙̠͗̉̌̀i̶̫͉̗͍̯̰̼̹̤̫͛̂̇̐̕͝ş̷͓̜̱̖̥̼͔̗̠̞̯̻̇̊͗̐͜ ̶̧̟̦͇͖̗̩͇̜̹̦͖͙͍̤̘̖́̅̌̑̍͜f̶̢̡̖͎̜͎̹̩̻̦̰̱̪͓̱͚̭̟͋̊̍͛́͠i̷̳̠̳͕̹̮̲̟̱̫̘̿̌̇͋̀̆̊͒̀͑̕n̶̡̩̫̼̤̤͇̟̯̠̱̘̺̱̩̝̑͂̈́͆̀͜ͅe̶̙̫̼̞̺͒̑͊͂̂̍̑͌̉͑̓̚̕͠.̴̡̜̠͇͖͖̲̤̟̩̭̮̪͓̉̒͐́̽̎͘̕ͅ ̷̧̩̲̖̦̺̞̹̟͂_ **

**_̸̼͔̺̭̭͇̹͍̱͓̬͊̅̃̽̏͐͛̋̈͒̉̓̕͜͝ͅE̸̛̛̤̠̜͎͍̺̯͔̦̬̥̤̯͍̝͗̌͌̓̅͌̌̎̂̂̇̃͜v̷̡̲͐̍͋e̵̢̢̢̦͇̗͇̠̣͔̦̱̜̩̎̔̉͊̌r̵̬͚͆̏́̌̽̏̎̊̌̚̕̕͝y̴̧̘̤̬̼̳̼̥̞̲͆̌͠t̷͍͖̜̪̜̯̘͆̏̇̌̂͑̓̈́̐͌̕ͅh̸͓̯̻̯̹͈͑̒̈́̈́̅̉̅̍̓̎̄̐͋͝í̶̞̫͉̣̯̯̺̦̫̖̬̭̩͔͙̆͗̎̓̂̓̍͑n̸͈̜̙̮̋͋̒͋͂͆͑̄̒̌̋͗͐́͊ģ̶̩̝̣͚̠͈͚̻̺̯̟̗̍̓̎̇͒͂͋͗͋̓ͅͅ ̴̛̻͍̠͓̬̲̯̳͒̂̈́͌͐̄̐͗̆͠ḯ̵̢̢̧̧̠̜̜̖̲̠͕̘̤̘̤̬͑̉̂͐̆̈́͐̈́͂̓̀̾͒̚͝ͅs̴̪͌̓̾̈̃̀͘ ̸̢̡̠͖̞͈͚̳͓̖̗͖̝̺͉̈́̍̏͜͜f̵̖͙̮͗̄̓͑͑̽̉͗̍̋͋͐̇͐̉̄̚͝į̴̹̺͚̟͓̼͔̮̤̫̫̠̹̫̝̽̽̊̓͜n̸̨̨̡͉̬̳̮͔̦͕̪͎̱̺̺̫̘͇̎̔̒͐̔͂͆̈́͆̌͋̒̾͝͠͠ẻ̷̤̹̗̞̣̮͓͎̖̞̰̙͉̅͋̅̈́͆͑͗̀͋̅̈́͂̅̾̕͝.̵̨͍͖̯͚̗͎̗̦̭̹̳̔͐̋̀͋̑̿ ̶̢̨̛̲̹͔̜̭̜̫̙͇͙̝͎̺̤͍̖̇̒͊͐̎̽̈́̑̎̒̒̄̚͝͝_ **

**_̵̬͐̅͛̇̐̏̈̈́͑͊̎́̚Ě̸̢̡̨̧̙̺̻͕̪̪͇̦̼̻̜̅̒̀̎̂̍̄v̷̢̰͇̭͔͎̭̪͙̤̽̈́̓͑̏̂̍̄͗̔͛̔̈́̔͘͘͝é̸̡̳̩̘̋͂̐̂̈́r̸̡̛̯͈͈͙̪͐͆͛͂͆̇̇̍̀̆͗̊̑͘͠y̶̛̭̭͔͆͂̂̑͊͂̌͛̽̕ţ̵͈͈̭͙̤̞̦̘̳͉͔̳͍̩͗̅̈̑̚ͅͅh̶͙͖͉̲̞̩̣̰̞͓͕͔̻̖̬̅͊̇ͅĭ̷̥̫̈́̌͆̕ͅņ̴̟̖͓̻̰̦̞͍̰͖̍̽̊̓̏̅̋̽̃̈́̈̚̕g̵͚̦͔̝̮̼̼̩̼͇̾ ̵̢̧̫̯͇̌̏̆͌̾̀̓͆̐̕i̴̫̹͚̠̼͈̱͈͕̭̐͂̊̈͊̇͂s̵̡̥̫̟̮̗̭̬͎̥͉̩͐̆̌͗̀͌̌̓̆͠͝͝ ̷̖̈́͐̄̉͠ͅf̷̨̘͉̩̖͕̬̻̩̪̝͗́̈̔̅̓̄̓̐̓̑̏̽̋̊͠ͅȉ̵͔̥͛̑͛͆̈͐̎̋̈́̓̓̿͐͝ň̸̦͉͕̲̞̦̳̯̩̠̮̭̼̹̫̠̹͗̈́̆̀̇̍̅̃̍̀̋͠͝ḙ̵̟͆̈͂̐͌͒̀͆̄̎͑̎͒̋̈́.̷̙̮͇̠͚̰̿̂̾̔̓̽̈̈̽͊̅̚͘̕ ̵̨̘̞̑̓̄͌͗̄̐̾̕͝_ **

  
  
  
  


She was screaming, her cries confused if they were maddened laughs or agonizing sounds. The laughter had spread to her just like the foul stench in the air. Toriel couldn’t help but join in on the flowers’ merriment. 

  
  
  
  


E̶̥̭̩͛̈́̆̂̈́͆́͘R̸͉̩͋͋̆̌͋̕͝͝͝Ṙ̴̡̢̢̢̛̞̦͉̦͈̠̜̱̼̘̹̠͚̗̻̗͎̙͕̱̭̙̃͌̒̂̉͑̉̏̂̀̍̌̂̄̚Ö̴̡̙̜͉͙̦̝͚͚̟͕̹̮̱̺̪͔̪̱͈̗̖̤̲̙̠͉́̈́̀̔̕͜͝ͅͅŖ̶̛͖̦͇̖̼̫̩̯̠̤̬̘̻̮͔̞͙̪̞͓̰͎͇̙̈́̀͒̈́̿̽̋̽̊̊̚͜͝ ̶̡̛̞͈̬̤̣͍͚̦̺͔͈̭̮͎͙̣͉̬͑̃͛̈́̀̔͒̇͗̾̓̉͗̈͂͆͒̉̉̔̒̍̓̈̀̚͝͝F̵̜̳̥̯̤͚̫͎͙̪͕̦̝͖̮̲̱͓̞͍̖͍̀̇͑̑̎́̆̈́̌̈̐͝͝͝͝ͅI̴̧̢̠̝͖͔̥̼̻͈̾̽̈́͂̋̎̈̍̌͊̚͘͠͝L̷̯̇͋͛̿͑͆͂͊̋͛̆̀̀̃͐͆͗́́̋͘͝͠Ȩ̷̨̡̼͓̝͍̖͈͉̳̌̾̓͂̕͝ ̴̡̛͖̩̤͈̤̣̻͚͚͙̠͕̞͉̙̠̝̖̭̠̻̂̅̑́̄̃̔̃̔̏̍̕̕ͅ3̶̢̡̨̯̼̬̳̭̣̼̲̺̞̞͕̰̰͙͎̠͓͍͍͍̪̮̭͙̺̀̉̑̔̀̆̈́̒̔̿̉̾́̈́̊͑͑̉͐̕̕͜͠͠ͅ1̴̨̧̬̱̭̼̝͎͛̂̿̔̕͜ͅ3̵̢͈̘̫͇̟̥̻͈̲̝͎͇̠͘ͅͅ ̸̨̩̳͉̣̯̬̦̦̭͚̮͕̦̬͍̬̪͉͍̠̳̒̒C̵̛̣͎͒̌͐̈́̇̈́̃̈́̏̽̅́̃̍̈͋̉́͌̽͐̑̕̕̕̚͝͝Ã̶̛̼̑̈́͑̿̓̃͐̽̑̈́̑͐̂̂͆̅̒̾̈́̍̓̕̚͘͠N̶̡̧̢͕̠͍̘͎̞̬̞͈̲̠̮̦͓͓̰̜̈͑̉͋̓͌̔̄͊̾̎̌̾̎̓͋̋̉̓̃͐͑̏͜͜Ň̷̡̡̡̟͚̯͚͓͔̮̞̗̙͖̲̬̯̲̣̼̗̫̰̞̥͓̫̯̘̓ͅO̴̧̨̨̧͉͇̭̺̗̖̳̳͉͔̜̙̦͇̰͈͎̖̮̜̘͖̬̮̪̊͊̔̈̍̏́̓̿̑̓͛̀̓̆̾̾͋̄͜͝ͅT̷̨̐̈́̃̀́̌͒̓̔̏̾̐̂̈́̎̎̌͌̽͋̌͒̽̎͋͆͘ ̵̡̢̨̱̼̜̭̣̘̖̜̺̯̗͈̦̻͔̈̋͛̋͂͠B̷̡͈̻͓̭͔̱̮̗̈̽̊͂͊̾̃̆͊̏̃̂̋̑̈͠͝͝E̵̛̝͇̱͊̑͆̉͐͋̽̈́̀̽̋̒̉̄̈́͊͛̔̈́͠͝ ̸̨̨̞͚̱̦͚̟̮̖͓̤̣̘͓͂̐͗̉͌̈́͗͗̕͝Ǫ̸̡̢̬͖̳̙̜̫͎͉͍͉͈͆͗͋͜͜P̴̧̧̙͓̞̺̹̝̠̯̫̜͇̻͈͖͉͓̻̦͖̼̞͇͔̝̼̫͋̌ͅĖ̶̢̠̤͎͉͚̤̝̣̦͖͓̼͛́̾̿̄̚N̵̛̙̻̘̫̞͔͉̟͈̍̅̀̊͑̆́̌̄̈́̅̆̍̀̄̊̓̆͒͠E̶͉̓D̴̢̧̧̡͓̙͕̞͓̥̗̬̮̥̜̱̞̙̭͙͓̻̯̰̥͓̩̜̖̂̏̿̏͂̀͒̀̒̑̈ͅ.̵̨̧̹͎͉̼͖̣͎͎͎̪̣̯͍̺͎̹̮͓͙̼̩̳̝͙͓̟͂̾̇ͅ

̵̨̢̢̨̧̙̬̜̬̰̥͉̠͇̼͍͉̺͍̪̲̤̻̬̹͚͎͍͑̀̎̌̿̚̚Į̴̬̝̺̠̘̝͇̰͖̭̖̯̥̯̩͉̖̖̹̱̳̳̠̲̩̫͆̇̒̈́̕͜Ṭ̵̢̻̪͓̭̼̣͓̹̞̘̦̘͍̣̟̻͕̪͇̲̮̳̬̞͔͋͊̏̔̏̈́͌̊̊̈́͆̍̆̈́̓̊̈̈́͘̚͘̕̚͠͝͠ ̷̢̢̧̗̺̬̳̰͕͈̩͔͙͖͙͎̳̬́͗͋͌̈́̉̽͑̃̌͆̓͌̒̑͘͝M̵̹͍͉͍̠̘͙̗̰̳̻͖̠̙̼̜͎̯̻̠͋̎͒̉A̴̩͋Y̴̛̛̻̾̆͛̇̃̓̃͆͛̓̃̈͒̎̉̓̐̍͐̿̈́́̚̕͠͠ ̵̛̻́̒͑̍̊̑͆̔̿B̵̩̙͈͇̺̥̩̜̻̬͖̩̬̼̲̳̼̺̹͙̺̖̹͎͇̐̇̆̽̂͠ͅÉ̵̛͇͔̗̱͖̄̈͊͐̑͊̈͑̂͝͝ ̸̺͓͔̜͙̼̣̣̍̓̎̓̐̅̾̂̕̚̚C̸̡̧̡͈̦͔͖̪̩͙̭͎̱̞̜͈̮͉͖̟̦̝͓͖̫̹̝̈́̀̈́̂̈́̆̓̀̃̏̈̚͜͝ͅÖ̸͎͔̦̘̠͙̟̭́̓̔̃̾͋̏̓̔̿͒͆̌̿͠͝R̸̡̢̳̞̮̯̜͙̟̭̱̩̝͇̗̘̣̹͙͙͈̥͎͔͌̑̀̆̇̄̒͐̅̊́̾̏̿̅̔͘͜͜͝ͅR̵̖̮̳͍̱̠̰̼͈̩̙̜͈̝̜̗̖͓̯̮̞͈̲̦̱̰̖̝̺͂̽́͐̑̈́U̷̧̘̻͇̮̗̞̩̼̼̟̫̩̼̱̣̳͚̺͙̲̮͓͖̠̩͖̓͜P̵̛̟̙͎̮̋͐̅͛͆̾̆͊̔́̒̽̏̈́̽̈́͊͑͊̔̊̕͠T̶̛̻͚̜̦̠̩̺̬̬͓̤͐̑̐͒

̷̡̝̲̱̠̙͈̙̖̣͓̗̣͓̙̪̪͎̯̫̻̝͔̯̲̞̑̂͘͜ͅT̴̨̨̡̤̪̗̭̯̮̦̩̳̮͍͙̹͎̥͚̜̗̦̣͈̑͐̋̄̓̾͒̅̏͛ͅŖ̵̢̛̛̝̱͚̺͚̜̝͈̥͓͕̠͙̘̹͚͔̠̩̟͍͉̥͎͌̃̄͒̓̇̔͐̉̒̄̃̕̕͝ͅY̶͈̮̟͈̽̽̆̓͐͑̇̈̌͠ ̵̧̨̯͎̰̣̦̯̝͇͔͇͓̰͙̙͇̥̻̤͙͚̭̯͍̙̎̈́̃̓̊̿̋̊͐̿̂͗̓Ő̵̙̗͆̓̔͂̐̏̈́͑̏̇̊̏̇̈́̆̇̈́̄̚͝͝N̴͎̹̞̤̬̹̦͉̮̦̘͛̈́̅͛̓̆͂̈̌̃̏͌̎̌̑̐̄̚͝͝E̷̪̱͙̲̤̥̮̠̳̗̭͖̮͕̖̖̗̹̫̰̊̔ͅ ̷̛̫͚̘̳̰̗͙͐͐̇̽͋͆̓̿͒̓̎̄̌̅̐́͠͝Ǫ̶̤̬͕͉̩͙̓̅̎̉̅̃͐̍͌̾̈́͐͗͗̔͗͂̈̎͗̿̕͝F̵̨̡̧̨͉̦̬͉̬̰̗̟̲̳̩͓̞̭̻̱̤̠̭̟̗͈͈͑̉͛͋̔̽͆͘͝ ̶̡̧̢̢̢̦̩̤͍̗̻͎̲͇̰̼̙̰͖̗̲̣̥͚̳̳̭͉̥̌͆̍͆͆̂̐͑̀̓̊͘͠͝ͅŢ̴̩̗̊͋̒͛̈́̈́͊̃̊̍̈́̈́͆̄̓̃̿̍͘͠͝H̸̡̢̧̛̞̩̖̦̹̯̟̺̦̫̞̯͕͖͉̘͕̺̣̗͈͇̜̔̊͋̽͆̓́̆̈́̀͗́͊̽͊͋̌͛̒̍̄͘̚̚͜͜͝ͅȨ̶̡̧̟̗̟͕͖̫̘̟͖͓̺̖̬͉̥̙̖͇̰̱͕̇̃͜ͅͅ ̴̡̢̮͙̮͔̘̩̜̫̰̹̻͍̰̜̳͇͌̅̓͒̈́͂̈́͌̅̇̌̔̈̎̉̚͜͝ͅͅḞ̶̡̙̭̰̮̽̏̆͌͛̽̿̔͂̆͝Ǒ̷̖͍͓̠̻̠̓̽̓̈̔̽̋̃̎̾̓͗͊̉̽͋̓̃̈̊͌̔̔̎͊̚͠L̷̢̛̬̲̗͕̹̹̱̘̭̜̝̭̺͍̲̗̳̩͖̥̀͑̓́̾̿̽̇̈́̾̊̚͘͜L̸̢̨͔̤̫̦̪̠̹̳̞̻͋̋̀̆̒̽́̆͑̽͑̋͑͊̍́̈̚̕͝͝͝O̷͚̽̐͌͠Ẇ̷̧̢͉̪̺̪̭̬̬̝͉̰̲̯̰̭͍̝̰̙̿͂̎̈́͝ͅĨ̶̧̛̝͈̖̻̣̗̼͙̬̈́͐͗̓͛͑̈̓͆͑̊̅̈́͝N̸̨̥̗̪͕̮̙͔̱̞̘̰͛̒̏̍̉͗͆͒̾̽͛̋̂̋̓͑̓̚̕͘͠G̷̨̨̺̣̬̹̲̣̤͔̼̖̩̰̦͇̈́:̷̨̨̢̙̱͇͓͈͍̬͚̼̝̮̬̝̬̟̘̘̯̖͖͕̞͔̣̈́̑̾͊͛̋͂̆̂͑̆̽͂͋̓̒͗̚̚͝

̷̼͓̣̙͔͒̃͒̏̊̅͝Ď̵̡̛̜̳̣̣̝̳̣̦͖͓̲͔̬̪̦͚͓͙̖͓͍̞̙̺͉́̋̈́̉I̵̧͎͙͍̠̥͕̹̬̙̗̗̠̪̋̌̈́̈́̆̐̐̉͐͑̈́̀́̓͗̂͂̔̈̍͘E̴̡̨̘̹̬͓͎͍̤̪͕̹̰̣̘͉͙̥̥̠͎̙̼͍̣̬̮͔̎̎̋̇͗̃̈́͑̔͐͜͝

̴̡̞͈̰̮̥͔̦̣̖̫̠̖̥͕̖̤̒͑̉͐̋̍̌̒͗̄̓̐͒͊̓̔͋̑̍̈́͗̊̾̚͜͠͝͝͝D̶̡̧̢̧̛̲̹̭̝͖̟̰̳̰̮̫̹͖̦̻̒̽̏͑̔̈́̈́͂͆̎͑̇̊͌̈́̽͋̏͊͘͘͜͠I̴̡̛͈̭̯̳̺͎͔̺̖̘͓͓̪͇̱̺̙͓͔͇̗̯̠͕͕̗ͅȨ̷̡͈̺̜̦͎̜̣͉̪̩̟̤̣̹̞̰̻̳̦͎̩̜͇̝̱̳͚̐̐̓̽̐͊͐͋͗̉̕

̸̧̡̛͇̗̪̝͈̼̭̼͖̫̲̠̜͙͎̖̝̫̠̼͈̦͎̞̍͛͂̈́͑̾̆͌̀̒͐̍̽̊͑͒̑́̇̐̾̂̕͘̕͜͜͝͠͝D̶̛̯̜̳̱̗͎̳̦͔͚͎̲̠͓̰̝̭͕̈́͂̓͗̑̐̉̄͛͗̓̓̐̂̂̑̑͂͊̌͐͌̚̚̚̕͝ͅI̸̢̛̫͓̥̟͔̰̝͈̮͎̮̩̺̾̌̉̈̏͛̆͌̈́̋͑̎̆̓̉͌̋̕͘͜͝͝͝E̸͈̼̞̜̰̻̦̰͈̯̘̟͇̳̭͓̣͇̖͙̦̥̓̀̽͗͐̈̉̉̓̚͜͠͝ ̷̡̱̩͇̜̫̖̜̬̦̠͉͎͇̊͛͋́̏̌́̓̃̀̌͊͘D̴̛̺͓͔͙̟͙͈̖͓͚͓͓̰̤̲̞̟͚̗͖̦͈̱̳̹̉͋̈̒͑͋̇̓̕ͅĮ̷͇̙͚̗̳̑͆͗͝E̵̡̡̡̢͓̹̹̺͓̮͎̗͕̮̖̥̮̪̜͉̘̮̥̗͇͗̎͊͂̅͋̐̎͊̐͋͑̐̽͆̈́͘̕͠͝ͅ ̶̢̨̢̧̩̺̯̱̱̬̦̲̳̰̣̦̲͓͍̣̘̩̜̯̠̟̼̋͑̽̀͐͆̅̑͒̄̈́͋̉͛̍̆̌͋̾̃̽̓̽̄̓͊͘̚͜͠ͅḊ̸̙̝̼̍I̸̢̡̧̛̘̲͉̖̰̜̩̜̱̟̞̣̤͈̞̟͉̓͊͗̍̿̔̈́͗̽͛̎́͛͂͛͌͜͝͝͠Ę̶̛̳̮̱̘̺̻̩̣̜͓̖͕̣͉̈́̿̈̽͆̂̑̓̓̽̈͊̔͋̈́̕͜͝ ̶̢̢̨̨̘̺̱̫̫̻̺̙͉̮̝̘̤̩͕͚̜͇̞́̅̂͆̉̋̈͌̇̿̔D̴̨̢̤̘̦̫̦̟̹̜͓̜̥̰͇̼̘̲͕̳͖̳̖̞̤̬͙̄͐́͗͂̔̓͋͊̓̆͒̉͊̃͂̒̉͘͜͜͝͝I̷̛̳̮̻̩̮̐̑̈̌͊͛̿̕E̶̡̨̢̢͔̝̟̳̥̫͕̩͖̬͙̰͙̠̲̮̘͎͔̼̥̻̻̫̓̒̓̈̊̾̈́̊̾͒ ̷̡̢̩̝̖̹̺̯̲͉̯̳̜̭͌̿̈́̐̀̾̆̍͂͒͂̃͐̋̆́̏̾̒̿̈́̈́̄̒͘͘͘͝D̶̨̬̜̜̪̭͔͇̦̫̲̣̟͓̬́̆͑̂Ị̶̧̧̨̡̧̟͈̹͙̪͕̥̲̙̩̹̺͉̮̟̰͑̈̌̊̏̏͐̓̃͊̿͊̈́̇̾̕͘͜͝ͅͅE̵̡̡̨̛̛̩͕̼̳̣̹̙̱͇̥̟̦̤̱̭̼̺̲͎̹̬̟̮͖̖͙̊̉̏͗͒̌̅̉̈́͠

̸̨̢̝͕̜̮̰̬̱̙̰̩̼̳̖͓̙̦̠̹̦͕͉̙̪͔̳̱̙̰̍̓̇̋͠͝D̷̡̫͖̤̝̦͍͉̻͋̈̄͌͗̽̆̉̕̕͠ͅĮ̴̡͈̰̣̰̞̦͎̱̗̤̟̣̫̱̜̜̬̞̼̐E̶̺̮͈̭̫͔̝͐̄̿̀̓̆̑̒͌͆͜ ̷̧̛̝̠͎̦̬͔̼̤̼̜̱̜͙̺̲͔͕̞͗͌̐̈́̆̈́͛͊̄͜D̴͕̻͎̼̗̩͓̯̳̥̰̞̘̜͚̥̤̜͍̮̱̹̹̜͐̊̿̽̾̂̇̇̎͒ͅĮ̶̭͔͖̻̦̤̖̱͙̂͑̍̊̎̈̒͛͜͝Ȩ̸̨̛͈̪̟͖̯̩͔̻̙̤̝͎̯̜̩̘̹̜͙͙̱̰̬͌̍̉̈͑̂͛͊͑͜

̴̡̢̗̤̳̒̑̇̂̏̃͋͒̓͑̂̇̂̅̆͛̇̈́͒̔͐͘̕͝͝

̷̨̧̝̻̝̳̙͎͕̰̗̳̬̦͂̋̾͜͜Y̸̢̺͕͎̜̙͈̝̥̙̦̩̖̖͖̩̬̥̥̔̅̑̅͆̆̊̉̌͂̕̚̕͝ͅǪ̷̤̠͇̮̘͎͍̱̩̖̞̺͓̪̩̗͍͎̯̺̈́̈́͆̎̆̅̂́͜ͅͅÚ̷̧͕̣̦͕̼̙̗̫͉̼̩͉̠̠̩̥̥͇̜̝͇̈̾̔ ̴̨̳͇̘̦̻͖̪̈̐͑͆̕͘͜C̷̡̦͉̖̣̻͎͖͂̔͑̓̍͋́̊̊́͊̈́̈́̍̈́̓͐̊̔̏̽̋̄́̏̀̍͑̋͜A̴̡̧̧̨̯̲̰̯͙̪̞͈̤̦͔̬̮̹̬̦̱͓̞̳̮̭͊̏́͌̑̃̅̆̔͘̕͝Ṅ̶̢̡̛̥̲͕̦̮̱͎̜̠̤̥̰̜̹̯̖͉̠̫̩̞̜̼̱̯̦̯̞̿̃͊̄̅̚̕ͅN̵̛̜̠̝̣͕̍͊̒͒̌̀̎̑̉̏̈́̑̔́͆͊̍̋̑́̄̿̾̃̑͐͘͝͝ͅÓ̴̢̧͇͉͇͙̥̟̳̩̞̞̰̥̙͉̞̻͈͈͍̻̼̰̳̜͗̏̓̓̐͋͂̔̆̈̔̀̿̋̔̎̑̈́͒̇Ţ̸̡̹͓̫̤̱̼̰̙̪̮͓͈͉̺̳̦͙̮̫̩̖͍̠̠̹̰̮̆̈́̌͛́̐͆̈́̄̈́͗̈́͂ͅͅ ̷̧̨̛̪̮͉͔̮̞̘̙͙͎̭̦̲͕͍͇͖̖͔͈͖̫̹̳̼̓̅͑̅̊͑̒́̒̓̈͛̈́̆̾̇̐͒̽̈́̃͑̏̑̈̉̚ͅD̷̤͖̱̝̩̯̤̣̙͔͍͈̓̎̑̾̔̈́̿̑̿̌͗̈́͌̉̌͊̑̉̅͌̓͂̔̅͋͠ͅI̸̢̧̤̟̥͖͓̰͖̣̯̜̿̍̊̈̒̓̄͋͌̅̉̍̃̌̉̉̾̿̍̉̎̑̕͝͠͠͝͝͠E̶̫̳̠̫͇̹̣͔̬̺͓̭͚͍̺̤͖͛

̵̛̛̛̪͈̰̳͍͎͒̏͌̊̇̿͂̓̃̊̆̑͘̚̕͝͝Y̶̛̤̤̤͛͋̽̅̓̅͋̉̋̔̓̆̌̒̈́̋̃͛͘̚͘͝͝͝͠͝ͅƠ̴̞͚͓̣͑͊͑̀̿́́̓̕͝U̸̢̩̱͎̼͈̗̿̇̌̄̽ͅ ̸̨̨͈̰͔̪͚̻̺̞̝͉̯̞̺̟̍́̃̿͑̈̈́̓͂͑̈́̈́͊̅̀͐̃̋̆̽̑͘̕̚͝͝M̵̛̛̳̯̭̘̱͉̰̤͇̫̖̦̭͓͇̔̄̈́̈̈́̋̍̎͒͂͊̎̕̕͝ͅĄ̸͕̰͈͖̦̣̻̙̫̱̠̬͑͛͂̓̐͒̾̑͛̒̇̂̆̍̈̈̈́͌̌̉̓̉̍̓̑̕̚͘ͅY̴̙̬̣̞̟͉̼̥̦̋̒̎̾̃̒̄̃͒͊̋̓͌̋͘̚͘ ̸̡̢̨͔͙͓̮̝̬̭̹͚̘͔̠̞̗̰͈͇̹͙͇͔͉̼͇͈͈̋̔̀̋̌̒̓̑͛̅̔̈́̏͋̏̐̌̓͋̈͆̕͝N̸̺̜͚͚͔͎͖̣̹̘͒̅̈́̍̎̽̓̎̍͑̈O̷̧̢̧̠̣̭̘͖̬̞̦̩̳͙͔̣͋͒̒̍́͋̏̈̃͛̅̀̇̉͑͆̏̚T̴̨̜̰̹̬͈̰̝͖̲̲̈̓͊̀̋̀͝ ̴͓͈̰̞̩̬̜̱͛̕͜D̴̨̡̪̪̼̹̹̦̭̫̤̼̞̖̞̤̺̣̻̗̳͎̝̣̙̗͗͆̃̔͂̿̈́̒̈́̌͒̈́̆͒͑͑̈̂͘̕͘͠͝Ī̶̧̧̜̜̖̺͖͔̹̬̜̣̲̣̞̞̫̙̳̼̳̺̣͔̲̓͑͐͐͜͝͠E̶̬̾͛͒͌̏̊̑̌̓̓͋̑́̈͗͛̓̊̅͐͌̄̐̏͝͝͝

̷̗̼͍̝̗̗͍̗̉̽Y̵̢̨̙̱̝̖̺̫̙͉̯̣͎̻͙̲̬̓Ö̶̡̺͓̤̟͇͉̟̗̤͙̪͇͍̼͔͉̦̦̘̹͔̜͈̘̰͚̜̊̊̓̒̇͌̈́̌̐̉̐̋̓̅̏͐̃̈́͘͜ͅU̶̗̥̝̝̩͈͙̯̺̔͊̎̄̾̑̂͗́̋̇̋͌̎̊͂̑̀̅̐͌̐̄̃̾̚̚͝ ̶̝̹̠̻̼͈̗͕͉̞̣̫̤̅̐̍͝͝ͅW̷̨̢̻͎̝̲̟̣̹̰̘͉̫̩̩̝̫̪̦̪͍̥̬̟̞͑̂̇̈́̉̍͊́̽͂̾͂͜͝Ǫ̵̢̡̢͍͍͓̤̼͇͙̝̦͙͙͚͈̮̺̮͚͖̰̊̋͒̀̈́̽͆̅̿͑̈́̕N̸̢̩̘̫̾̂̔̏̔̍͆̆̑̏̆̓̅̌̽͂̕͝'̴̧̨̡̨͍̱̰̭̥͕̖̜̯͖̳̩͕̗͖̼̰̹̳̇̅̽̆̇̄̾̽͌͛̇̊̊̿̈́̚͠͠͝T̴̨̯̲̘̭͇͕̻̭͕̼̺͍̫̘̙̐̽͗̈́͂̉̄̓̾̈́̅̍̾͛̍̋͑͂̑͂̚͠͝ͅ

̵̨̼̩̤͓͍̙̠̠̣̺̼̲̫̻̣̠͉̱̯̹̯͚̥̈́͋͂̃̓̋̃̅͝͝ͅ

  
  
  
  


Some vestige of her own comprehension reached out to her amidst the madness and told her to dunk herself back through the icy cold threshold. 

I̴̡͈͋ẗ̸͍́̈́̒͝ ̸̣̠̝̬̪̈̒̔̍b̴̗͕̺͇̖̬̅̅̄̈ě̴̟͔͑́c̷̢̻̺̠̮̋͌͠ạ̵̝̔m̶̩̞͚̞̿̀̓̽̚ē̴̫̮̼͔̪͔̾͒̏̿ ̵͚͉͓̹̬̓͝i̴̗̾͆̄̋m̵̙͔͙̏͘͠m̷̨̻͈͚̲̞͗e̶̢̦̠̯͕̙̐̒͝ḑ̷̪͓̮͂͜͝ḭ̸̰̹̀̅͜a̷̪͕͖̙͂͑t̶̢͙̪͙̓̍̽͘e̴͉̜͓̘̘̾̄͛ļ̵̫̰͕̹͘ͅy̴̘͖͌̔̅ ̶̛̟̙̞̅͊̄͛ȁ̸̯̈́̃́͑p̷͎͖̬̦̹͂̐̈̌͒p̶̨͔̟̻͕͙͗̃̍̂a̸͈̫͍͗r̶̯̭͉͎̖͖̈́̃̇͘͠e̵̫͐͐̍n̷̤̞͎̓̈́t̸̩̙͖̿̂̽̿ ̶̡̥̱̫͇͂̓̽̀̚ẗ̷̨̯̭́̋̄ĥ̶̨̰̬͙̣̚á̶̝̙t̸̺̩̥̏ ̸͙͈̗̐͌͜B̸̫̝̤͖̿̒͂͂̂͊r̵̮͓̹͂̏́̚͝ą̶̖̮̗̏͛̈́͑̓i̵̢̡̱̥̔̾̈͒͌̚n̸͓̩̥̣͔͗̊͗̋z̸̭̺̈͒͝ ̸̝̪͗͜d̷̢̛̓̊̕î̴̠̝̩̭̟̰̐̎d̴̨̰̫̤̄̅̄ ̴̡͎̼̩̞̱̊̐͌̊n̷͚̙͋̑̈́o̵̧̬̳̘̒̆̍̈́̍͝ͅt̶̨͖͉͙̣͔̿̅̍̈́͝ ̶̯̆̈́̓͂s̴͔̀̀͛̍̓ư̸͖̬̣̱͖ͅr̷̘͈͍̫̈́̀̈́͂͋̋v̷͙̞̙̙͉̺̑̑̊̓̓i̴͓̦̱͓̫̽͋̚v̶̟͔̦͇̤̿͛̄̍́e̵̬̲̞̔ ̵̧̛͕͕̥̥͙̃̏͋̊̈́t̵͍̟̺̺̃̀̈́̃̀͠h̷̛̯̗͓̿̈́̈́̄̚ē̸̢͖̾̈́̂ ̷̨̨̩͇̗͒̔͆͜͝f̶̧̺̫͇̖̓̓̎̅̾ą̴̛̞̥͓͑̂̔͒̈́l̴͓̿͊͘͘͝ḻ̶̬͈̳̳͋͗̕.̴̡̦͓͐̈̿̍

̸͍͖͉̬̎̓͐͘F̷͈̫̈́̈́i̷͚̇̄̾͋̽r̸͎̥̞͒̋̕͝͝s̶̻̈̈́̀͘t̷͙̐̔ ̵̰̝̘̜̂͋͋̊̃g̴̮͔̟̪̭̪̓͝ḷ̷̻̦̠͝â̴̛͕͗̅n̴̹̬̭̺̎͜c̷̫̠̿̔̆ė̸͈̿̍͗ ̴͔͖̩̠̐̉͊̕c̶̥̭̈́̔́͒̃̄o̶̠͙̯͎̱̥͐̓̆̂̈͝ȗ̸͙̰̬l̴͊̔͒̍̏͜d̷̺̞̺̣̺̏̉̄̅̄ ̵͚̗̦͚̞͗͗̔͆͑̓h̸̢̩̒ä̸̛͉̳̣́̃͘v̸͖̔͗̏͝e̴͖͚̰̫̘͓̓̈́̋̉͘ ̵̨̝͕͇̪̒̍͑s̵̬̭̍̎ͅu̷̞͝ͅg̷͈g̵̼̥͎̟͆̄͑͐͝e̷̟͈͍͗̃͝s̷̛̖̥͈̜͉͐ͅț̴̝̂͋e̶̬̠̻͙̦̣̽͌̍d̸̜̤͈͉͍͑̓̑̈́̾̌ ̶͓̹̱̃̊͆͝͠ṯ̸̞͈̂́̈h̵̠̰͒͒͋͘͘a̵̼̳̣͈͎̐̍t̵̖̔̆̈́̈̈ ̶̜̰̼̼̻̅̉̄͌̾͜͠h̸͚̪̱̭͆̊ͅę̴͓̝̪̇̄͊ ̷͈̥̟̝͘͜e̶̛̠͇̞̰̝̤͗ȋ̷͎̺̩̀̚t̵̨̛̖̟͇̯̦̚͝h̶̡̩͔̞̫̬͂͂̽̎̚ḙ̶̅̓̈̋̕ȓ̶̳̰̬̟̍̐̕ ̵̧͓̽̓͠d̷̡͓̞̣̭͑͆͒̈́r̶̡̗͎̫͎̊̈́͆̀͗ọ̶̟̊̈́͆̃ͅẃ̶̙̣̺̼̋̅͠n̵̫̺͈̙͙͕̔̏̎͐̕e̵̥͖̼̒̓d̷͉͚̻͇́̂̌̈́̈́ ̷̖̲͛ŏ̴̬͖͔̳͇͉̾͝r̶̢̝̗͆̍̚͜ ̴̙͌͐p̸̪̄̋̏̄a̵̯̩̭͈̣̐̋̀̽̋ş̵̾̄ş̶̘̝̯̻̋̂͒͂͜͠ẻ̶͙̻͚d̷̤̳͂̑͐̓͌̚ ̵͇̞̲̪̹̤̚f̸͙̥̒̆͑̏͜͝r̸̼͔̦̖͖̆́̎ͅō̶̙͆̅m̸̦̜͇̰͗ ̸̯̺̜̥̪̫̓̀̕͝͠l̶͍͓̪͋̈́̕͠ͅo̶͙̩̜͗̈́̈̃s̶̡͖̪̥̯͙̾͑ḯ̶̠̤̭̎̍͆n̵̯̻͉͈̭̽̒͌̐̚g̸̤͒ ̵̢͎̦̽͜t̷̬͂o̵̘̅ͅő̴͙̹̟͉̎͛ ̶̡̏m̵̘̽̓̇̄ư̷͚̥͝c̸̫̲̞͊ẖ̴̡͎̪͍̃ ̸̢̗̠̫̰̋͌͊̈́̑b̷̙̾̈́̈́͌͠l̷̪̘͌͋͛̈̈́o̸̼̍o̸̧̢͉̙̫̔͌͊̑̕ď̵̹̹̫̯͝

̶̯̎̐͠

̵̗̐͗͛͋́̚B̶̡͔̪̳̲͇̕ṵ̴͈̣̞̆̍t̶̡̳͎͈̳̋̆͠ ̷̰̰̥̞̇͊̇̐t̶̪̱̹͇͠h̸̨̯̗̱̿̒ḛ̶̛̎͌̍̕͠ ̸̱̮̄͜t̵̝̮̩̜̝̓̕r̷̛̠̠͝͝ǘ̵̗͕̌̏͊͝ẗ̸̢̝͇̂h̶̭̦̎͜ ̵̟̞̹̺̜͙̒w̶̡͚̣͕͕̉̿̀͊̓͋a̷̰̻̼̺̥͌s̷̠̥̙̥̤͉͝ ̶̡̂͛̉̈̈e̴͍͝v̶͙̮̪̜͗͂̒̚i̷̲͓͈̞̖̎̀ď̵̘͇̌e̸͈̭͚̙̒͑ñ̶̛̻̓̿͒̕t̴̯͎͍̭̃̾̈́̿ ̷̧͉̗̼͆͊̿̈̓̾͜ḟ̵͕͔̳̪r̷̝͈̥̘͇̈́̓̽͝ő̸͓͎̱̈̐m̵̡̼͔̼̲̹̓̓̉̿ ̵̲̬̈́̃t̷̙͙̼̱̚h̵͙͙̘̲̼̔e̸̛͓̭͚͊̋̊͊͂ ̴̛̟͔̝̟̪͑̉̾m̸͚̬̞̝̃͗̇̚ả̸͕̙͈̫s̸̙̖̝̃ͅş̶̡̛͇̝̞̑̈́í̶̧̥̱̱v̸̜̥̈́͝ę̶̣̌̀ ̸̢̡̮̘̻͖̔̽ś̴̨͕̹̜̣́̚p̸̜̱̙̾̽ḻ̶̙͆̔̈̌̕͝i̵̩̦̙̹̱̘̊̏̓̓̓͝t̵͇̗̺͙̻̀̚͜ ̶̠̞̫͇̖̔̽̑͋̈́ͅǫ̶̟͔̾͂n̷̖̼̫̙͚͙̂̀̿̒̽̐ ̶͖̺̗̩̦͒̂̂͐̍̚ô̵̗͉̰̜͑̚͘͝ņ̷͓̹̎̓̎̀͠e̵̠̲̤̬͉̊̒̾̈̐͝ ̵̟͇̫͔̯̯̆s̷͓͖̅̈i̴̱̲̺̱̥͗̍d̴͎̗̓̆ê̴̹̻̔̉͑̿͝ ̶̛̛̞̦͕̾͒̕o̵̬͙͈̟͌̇̃̃͌̍ͅf̷̝̈́̓͘ ̶̨̗̬̼̳̌͐͋ḩ̵̠͕̳̐̐̍ị̴̡̗̹͙͂̿͒͜s̶̬̍̆̿̈͠͝ ̴̾͊͑͝ͅh̷͉́ę̸̣̌̋̃̉̇͘a̵͈̣͗d̷͎̫̟͊͑̀̆̈́͑,̷͙̻͉̣̎̄͂ ̷̢̨̺͓̈́͊̈̊g̸̘͇̔ͅr̴̯̲̣̤͚̾̽̾͘ả̷ͅy̷̖͖̘̔̎̈́̍ ̷̪̥̝͇̑̎̍̓̈́̇m̵̖̱̟͇̬̊͛͆̈́̇a̴̝̩͓̤͛͒̎t̷͈̑ͅẗ̷̠́̅͌͗͘e̶̠̝̹̋̈̄̏̄͜r̷̟͎͛̒̂ ̶̛͕̰̾̃̅š̴̨͚̜̎̋e̷̖̖͊͛̄̉͜e̸̢͂̎p̴̹̠̫̼̪̳̊̈͒͝e̴̟̻͕̣͖͗̊͆͝d̴̘͇̉̋̔ ̵̦̻̯̭͚̲̍̈́i̵̱̖͚̬̪̔̔͗̇̆n̷̙͚͓̈̃ţ̷̢̯͙̺͋̇͋̕̚o̶̖̻ ̵͓̊̋̀̐t̸̤̣͚̪̻̣͛͑͊ĥ̴̘͖͓̆̉ę̷̥͔̙̝̼̏̈́͗͠ ̶̨̬̤̞̤͂̒ẇ̵̦̊̆̆a̸̫͍͓̱͚̝͂̿͆ṱ̶̺̽͑̃e̴͕͒̋̆r̴̤̗̹͇̖͐̚̕̕ ̷̣̟͌͛̈́͝f̸̧̥̎r̴͉̈́̊̽o̸̞͎͖̎̚͘m̶̘̗̤̮̼̪̋̓͌̈ ̷̣̩̂h̶̨̧̩̆͒͝͝ͅi̸̯̻̩̟̿ͅs̶̞̊ ̸̙̳̪̘̉̈́͝w̸̪̃̔͝o̸̹͎͓̅̃̈̍͠u̶̯͉̫̕n̵̙͗͂͑̑d̶͔̯̝̏͑̅̆͂.̴̬̣̈́ͅ ̴̗͕̭̒H̴̬͖͚̏̚ĩ̴̩͇̰̠̩͕͌̐̏̃̾s̶̛̫̮͕̅̎ ̵̡̘̻̣͕̻͋́̆̓̇͝ḷ̶̝̘̺̈͆͘å̷̧͙̺̘̀͗̃̍͒n̸̛͇̳d̸͉̱̗̫͓̮͐̎͝i̴̛̳̺̙͕͖͗̈́ͅn̴̟̗̰̮͙͑g̸̡̞̼͍̫͑̊̽̽̊ ̷̼̠̈̃̓̾͂̚w̴̘̟̳̠͓͒̔̿͋͗͋ō̶͖̗̾͂̒̾̇ù̸̲̠̜̂͂͒͒͘l̷̢͍̖̦͈̀̈́̌̉͝ḑ̶̱̦̟͉̖̈́́̂ ̴̱̞̣͆͂̒̉͘ḩ̴̳̙͑̉͒a̵̖͒̏̄̈͠v̷̻̻͓̝̥̑̾̂ê̸̖̏̔ ̸̧̧͍͉͙̣̅͠b̴̨͉͇͓͂͝ẽ̴̹̭̬̂̈́͠e̷̜̳̯̺͗͂͗̎̚n̴̠͈̠͓͔̏̓̇̂ͅ ̷̻͚̬͗̄̊͝ḣ̵̳̥͓̫̔́̐͑ą̷̻̋r̷̠̆͝d̶̠͕̹̮̩̅̿͑ ̸̧̙̩͎̺͇̎è̴̛͉͊̀̏͜ņ̶͉͚̪̠̻̔̓̏͋̏͐ö̵̭̺́̈u̶̻̞̼̍̏͝ģ̷̟͈̲̟͈̃͑̐̂h̸̢̥͈͔̜̯̓̽̌̾̅ ̵̘̟͙̓ͅw̴̻̍̔̑ĩ̷̪͆̾̅̿t̷̘̠͉̃h̷͍̥̖̕o̵̧͚͋͑̽̃̚͜u̸̜̣͔͈͛͂̑t̸̢̙̯͊́̋ͅ ̸͚̥̈́̄͒͜h̴̡͕̫̳̰͛̽́i̸͍̓̾͗͌͝s̷̖̦̫͍̼͒̄̋̋ ̶̝̖̮̬̠̠͗͆̇b̷̻̩̣̙̮͑͆a̷̡̘̲̟̓c̸̨̢̢̩̜̿̅k̸̢̰̯̥͚̠̔͘͝͝p̸͍̤͂a̴̡̡̠͖̲͕̓̀̎̄͗̌c̴̬͕̯͆k̷͈̜̿̈́̊̈ ̵͈́͊̃̍̏'̷̗̠̫̃̿̈́̀͠͠c̴̩̻̱͍͈̿̌͒̋̌̐u̵͍͎̼͇̗̝̿s̶̢̛̭̑̒̄h̸̬͔͈͗̊̈́i̶͚͖͈͂̓̈́͆͠o̸͈̻͈̅̔n̴͓͈̠͕̂̚͠ͅï̷̜̒̉͠n̴͝ͅĝ̷̡̘͎̇͗'̷̺̖̬̳̮̄̓̓̕͝ ̸̗̅͗ḩ̸̡͓̇̉ͅỉ̷̞͋s̶͍͎̈́͛̂̀͝ ̵̨̹̫̟̔̐͜h̴̢̟̭̤̾͒e̸̡͍͐̉̏a̸̜̘̻̺̙͊͛̓͌̈́̀d̶̨̦̹͍͉͋̓͌͠ ̸̧̡̗͎̹̔̉̒̏̕ẅ̷̢̦̺̬͉̎͠ḣ̶̡̛̈́̈́̃̒ė̵̮̪͚̍ṅ̷̹͐̑̊̅ ̴̝͛̔h̵̛̜͉͛̍̓̎ę̷̡̻͈̙̖̈́͐̈́̊̚ ̶͉̣̺̭͍̾l̶̖̠͖͙̭͑̇͒̕à̵͖̜͌͛͛͑͠n̵̫͎͙̩̈̋d̵̞̊͗̈́̓̕͝ẽ̶͕͖͎̙̰̩͗̒d̴̛̗͕͛̑͑̽͘.̶̢̬̙̹͌̈́̉ ̵̹͖̿̆͛

̷̳͠

̶̬̜̩̊̏̄̃͌B̶̛̛͚̈͂̆͝ȓ̷̠͚̽͝ä̷̳̱̻̥̘͍͝ĭ̵͕̮̪̻̦͑̀͆̋̚n̷̢̧͎̙̗̣͒z̵̧̩̙̥̳͐̊͌ ̴̦̥̲̬̿ͅw̸̧̺͙̆̽͊ą̸̖̤̬͇͋͒̏ṣ̵̢̛͂̑ ̵̱̣͆́͂k̴̜̟̖̳̬̠̇̈́ǐ̸̢̚l̴̞̳̺̿̒͒̕l̴͉̤̑ȅ̵̢̱̗̥̙ḑ̸̣̣̜̲̺̓̓̍̈̒ ̷̗͚̤̠̆͊̈́̌̈̎b̴̢̤̥̘͊̅̈́y̴̛̜̮͈͎̏̌͒̉ͅ ̷͙͕̄̂̃h̷͓̗̤̅̾̐i̶̺̩̱̳̓͂͜ṡ̷̢̨̩͍̄̓̈́̕͝ ̸̧̢̦͔̲̈̈́́̑ó̴̺̻͇̺w̶̧̬͓̣͑n̶̰̞͛̐͑́ ̵͕̇̐̕i̶̡̩͔̐̔̃͗n̴̋̐ͅv̴̺̰̙̆̄̐̈́̕e̵͎͎̼͚̭̪͌͗n̵̛̗̠̘͇̏̆͑̄͠ͅt̸̞̝̦͓͚͗͝o̷̞̽̃͒r̵̢̡̝̤͉͑̃̽̾̚͜ỵ̵͔̺̳̮͌͆̔̒.̷̳̹̥͂͑̈́ ̸͉̍̊

̶̤͆͠

Ȩ̵̛̛̛̖̭̻͖̼͖̩͖̙̱̥͙͉̲͖͉͔̥͔̘̦̼̻̲̌̽͌͐͒͗͐̇̀͑͋̾̇̄̎̅̆͋͆̓̈́̀̈͂̂̊̎͋̑́̐̇̊̈́̉̍̋̾͒͊̕͘͠͝͠N̴̨̢̦̫̦̲̫̻̭͖̞͕͚̬̰͍̩͇̰̬̻̫͎̜̪̝̯̜̜̟̖̥͖̗̮̭͗͐̑͂͋̄̆̉̒̅̂͒͐̓͌͋̓̎͑̀͗͆̓͒̈̄̏͛͒̋̉͂͌͘̚̕͘̕͘̚͝͝D̴̡̡̤̘͈͔͙̥͎̻̪̦̬͖̰̓̑̓̋͊̆̓́̒͐̒̍̋̆͘̕͘̚͜͝͝͝͠͝ͅ ̸̧̢̩͚̹̖̗̲̼̣͓̗͚̳̼͓̜͇̤̱̱̗̹͕͚̑͛̐͂͒̿̓̾̃̄̽̀̈̇͒̓̑̋̿̔̄͑̍̽̆̕̚͝͠͝ͅͅO̵̢̧̧͈̩̭͚̩̮̫̩̭͓͇̝̗͚̯̝̺̱͙͚̗͖̼̠̣̯̟̞͛̒̒̋̈̀̿͑̅̅̽͒͑͛̚̚̚͜͝͝ͅF̴̢̛̪̫̲̟̗̭̲̀̌̐̈̈̐̾̏̐͗̈̈̋̃̀̊̔̽̃͛̊̈̈͌̉̅̾̎̒̅̑̈̌́̇̌̓̒̚̚̚͘̚͘͠͠͠͠͝ͅ ̴̞͙̩̪̟̺͎̫͔̙̪͙͌̍̓̓̿̆̈́̊̉͝͝F̸̨̧̨̛̲̰͖͍͕͉͉̯̪̻͉̝͓̥̖͓̪͕̮̬̺̠̪̺̟͕̩̫̤̠͉̫̯͚̟̲̗̦̜̥̙͇̠̠̠͍̥͇͓͎̘̲͑͜Į̵̛͖̬̟̼̟̝͙̼̙̗̮͔̠̲͍̱̂̎͛͗͗͐͗́̐̒͋̈́̏̔̊̿͂͐̈̈́̋̈̓̈͑͛͒̇̽͛͛͋̒͆́̈̂̒̈́̀͌͗̋̇̒̽̚͘͘̚͠͝ͅͅL̴̨̧̨̧̡̨̛̪̼͉͇̞̞̘̙͚̻̬̺͓̪̰̦͚̗̮̒͑̿̈̌̈́̇͐̐̽̃̈́̾̈́̉̋̓̌̽̍̀͋͊́̈́̅̌̌̈́͛̽̇̒̈̕E̴̢̡̡͇̳͙̟̘̘̬͍͍͚̪͙͈̞͓͔̹̺͚̪̺̩̯̳̱̻͕̬̺͓͚͈̮̩̠̝̬̦̫̱͍̘͓͍̩̰̗̗͗͋̌͊̄͌̋̌̔̀̍̓͘͜͜͜ͅͅ ̴̧̧̧̡̢̗͈̜̤̩͕͇̠͇̱̬͉̥̗̝̜̘̺͖̖͕̣̺͍̥̥̼͉͙̥̠͕̳̠͓̟̞̟͚̝̘̝̣͍̫͓͖̭͚̘͔̻̈͌́̑̑̓͗̾̆͌͒̈́͘͝͝͠ͅ0̸̨̡̨̨̬̱̬̘̤̪̹̫̗̦̙͕͓̯̖͙͙͙̮̱̤̦͓̭̯͈͍̙̫̼͛̓̈́͗͗̕ͅͅ9̷̨̨̛̼̭̤͎͓͍͍̪̦̦̹̣͇͔̭̞̰̟̗̙͈̗̱̺̀̄̾̔͑̾̀̂̅̉̃̒̔̂̃̈́̓͗͘͠͠7̸̯͈̺̖͍͈̜̺̲̀̌̈́̓̎̀̿͒͗̍͛͌̌̈́̃͂̓̓̍̏͗̈́̀͆̀͑̉̓͊̎̈́̚͘͝

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Toriel’s head went under, that was a good idea. She drowned out nearly everything as the madness around her seemed to vanish with surge of cold. It didn’t mean she was free though. Something had taken her cries and made it their own, as she could hear audible despair dead ahead and a shrill scream broke out.

“ _WHY WOULD YOU_ **_DO_ ** _THIS?!”_

With that, Toriel found herself standing on top of the wrecked bridge. This was _not_ the same place she had been… The fires that ate at the wood were now as red as the stains soaking into it, they illuminated the visage standing at the end of the bridge before her. Its tears reflected the lights like diamonds falling from their face. 

This indiscernible shape from before was now a small yellow monster wracked with grief and stricken with horror as they looked upon Toriel and what had been wrought before her. The cries were like daggers stabbing into her heart. Before she could act, a presence suddenly overtook her from behind: the red liquid soaking it burned her as it passed through. 

  
  
  
  


_A red eyed monster stood before sobbing child, the flames of destruction and chaos cast their sinister shadows from behind, and their figurehead of hope lay deceased, just at the monster’s feet: the monster’s doing. And all the monster did to atone for this… this grand deceiver, was smile at them._

  
  
  


Toriel couldn’t make out this _creature_ towering over that child. Every aspect of comprehending what it was just _refused_ to come forth. All that would be allowed for her to realize was how much she hated this thing, how much she _feared_ it. Those eyes and that goddamned evil smile, there was nothing but abomination for them, yet she had seen them before. She had met this red eyed monster in the past. 

_“- I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE GOOD GUY!! I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIEND!! BUT YOU’RE THE_ **_*BAD GUY*_ ** _!”_

The child was nearly blinded by their own tears but their grief quickly flared into anger. 

“-If-fff if you want. To g-go any f-f-further and hu-hhurt any more of m-m-my friends. Then you’ll have to go. Through **_ME!”_ **

So brave… Even faced with this despicable thing of harm, this child stood up and faced it rather than running away. They had already shown far more integrity than Toriel ever did, demons like this one should be _afraid_ of monsters with such strong will. 

**It** **_was_ ** **afraid…**

As the child took a stance and planted themself firmly in the way of the beast, it stopped advancing towards them. In fact, the thing lost its intimidation upfront. It was like the demon had suffered a shock and shrank away, the grin had vanished and those searing red eyes… One of them turned green and they both looked terrified. **It was Brainz, the nightmare was Brainz.** But no, it wasn’t even that… this thing that Toriel could only feel hate for **_turned back INTO_ ** **Brainz.** It was him again, with his ‘lost child’ look and his paranoia. He was who had to face what he’d done, not the thing that had done it. 

And this child… Brainz would never lay a hand on them, he just couldn’t. Toriel saw it with her own eyes, he just slowly backed away as the heat from behind would catch up to him. She had never felt so horrible inside, this was what she had led him to. 

Brainz just continued to cower, a shudder in his steps. The scene had started to deteriorate as it had nothing more to present. Brainz had soon vanished on his last step and Toriel started to search for the trail he’d leave behind so she too could leave this place. _But there was no more trail…_ This was the end it seemed, the lowest Brainz had ever gone in this mutually created nightmare. It left Toriel feeling… _confused_ though, even **_unsatisfied._ **Such unwarranted feelings that lead to dangerous thinking, a shameless part of her wondered where she herself would be on this trip. Surely her abandonment to him would resonate, right? Maybe not, maybe it hadn’t devastated him as much as she dreaded and felt in her broken heart.

**_Ｏｒ ｍａｙｂｅ ， ｙｏｕ ｊｕｓｔ ｈａｖｅｎ＇ｔ ｓｔｏｏｐｅｄ ｌｏｗ ｅｎｏｕｇｈ．．．_ **

The very ground she stood on was no more and she fell. She fell for a long time, blurred shapes and distorted voices passed her on the way down. 

**_Darker and Darker_ **

**_Deeper and Deeper_ **

**_So Cold…_ **

She couldn’t even tell that she stopped or where she was. She had Brainz to help her out with that, as if she didn’t already know.

_“ I_ **_**TRUSTED**_ ** _YOU!!! you-BASTARD!!!!”_

The recreation was all the same: that hurt voice screaming at her, the hostile feelings drowning the air, her home no longer existing… leaving this place of vacant rooms and sorrow. Somehow, watching it the second time from an unseen spectator's perspective was so much worse than living it. 

_“-AUUUUUGGHH!!!”_

Brainz fell to the ground. Toriel watched herself send him down to his lowest point. She felt angry, she hated this monster: this _stupid, useless,_ **_worthless, PATHETIC,_ **pile of dust cast away the child that needed her the most. 

If she was still alive, this would have killed her from grief. She wondered even now how she did it, how she managed to be so cruel without collapsing from her disgusting actions. She watched as Brainz writhed and festered on the floor, it was like a child throwing a tantrum in slow motion. She watched herself rushing over to him, the only good move she did in this moment, **the last mistake she would make with him.**

The gun clicked in her face and Brainz pulled the trigger. That’s when everything went dark for her then, but now what happened next would be shown in the light to her. The sound the weapon made was indescribable, it was mistaken. The gun had never worked, it was nothing more than a figurehead, a placebo. The light it created though, was like the flash from a camera, the genesis of a photo. But within this moment played a film of one million photos: every single moment, experience, hardship, internal struggle, external struggle: _every_ inkling of pain Brainz had felt down here flashed into Toriel. It was no wonder she collapsed. The only question was if Brainz had any idea this would happen, that he would do this to her. Whatever the case was, Toriel deserved it. 

She watched herself fall to the floor, slipping into unconsciousness. Toriel should have seen Brainz leap to his feet and run away as fast as he could. That's what his plan would have called for, if his ruse didn’t give him all too much time to get away from her: that he’d be gone before she could even blink. That’s at least how she imagined it went… she couldn’t have been more wrong. 

What Brainz did was nothing short of harrowing for her to see, especially because he was _just_ outside of her grasp. For what felt like _forever,_ he lingered. Brainz would make for the exit but end up right back beside her downed form. He paced over and over, looking back at Toriel a countless number of times. There was no plan, he truly didn’t know what to do… The lost look in him was radiant at this point, even more than the misery Toriel had laced him with. It wasn’t until some crushing motive inside of Brainz had overcome the remaining reluctance… and he begrudgingly left Toriel by herself. **And just like that, he was gone… the truth of the matter was he never saw this coming, and he never wanted this to happen. But it was just like her to doom him as if he were truly one of her own children.** This… this was where Toriel killed him. Not anywhere else, not any _one_ or any _time_ else. It was here that she condemned him to die. As he disappeared from her vision for this final time, it became apparent as Brainz succumbed to the nothingness closing in from all the portals to the room. Her time was up as well, and she would be taken by the expiration to this limbo shortly after. 

Her home gradually vanished all around her, Toriel was left all alone in the midst of the void: slumping to the center of the room as it continued to shrink.

“I just-”

She sobbed, still capable of crying as the tears rolled down her face.

“- I just wanted to help…” 

**_I just wanted to help…_ **

**_ɪ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ᴡᴀɴᴛᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇʟᴘ…_ **

**_İ̵̢̩̻̺̩͖̤͕̈́͒ ̴͉̰͔̩͚̗̘̋͝ͅj̵̛̗͍̺͖̱̪̞̓̉͗̋̕͜͝ű̵̬̙̠͍̈̒̆̚s̷̢̖͖͆͝ṱ̷̡͓̗̲̲̀͑ ̸̡̢̳̳͉̫̬̒͑̆͛w̴͙̲̱͖̻͒̓͠a̴̟͙̳̰͊̐̌̈̐͗̄n̷̬̖̤̖̻̥̥̈́̅̂̑t̷̝͓͕̟̙̦͇̘̘̘̏̾̈̍͝͝e̵̢̧͈̺̙̼̪̗͚͍̎̆̈d̷͕̍͆̾ ̶̖͙̦̝̬̓̀̋̽͝ṯ̷̰̝͇͉̰̲̝̈́ŏ̵̦͔̣̮̼̲̠̥̭́̇̔͐̚ ̵͓̈́h̶̗̞͔́͊͌̄͑ȇ̶̯̗̜̼̥̋̾͋͜l̵͓̄̒͋̂͒̃͘p̵̺͎̻̘̙̙̟̞͉̪̄͛.̵̢͈̻͎̯̬̘͎̭̲̿̑̄͒̂͌̉̚̕.̸̣̮͖̦̫͕̗̞̠̋.̸̼̲̊̔̈̉͗̏̆̇̿̉_ **

**_𝙸 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚙…_ **

  
  
  


A shrill sounding cry filled the room, it was ceaseless. 

“Mom, I just wanted to _help!”_

[We've only just begun...](https://youtu.be/YAMB3oRyWno?t=14)


	2. 01

_ ♪Before the risin’ sun, we fly. So many roads to choose. We start out walkin’ and learn to run.♪ _

_ ♪And yes we’ve just begun.♪ _

* * *

  
  


The young sounding cry had been joined by this fond melody being sung by a pretty sounding voice beside a crib. The room fully reformed itself, revealing a fancy intended living room half buried by clutter with a half ledge separating it from an equally dirty kitchen. Someone from within started making for the crib, attention grabbed from the sounds the occupant was making. A skinny and frankly  _ sickly  _ looking woman wearing some gaudy and beyond revealing outfit strutted forward. It looked like she was wearing half of her stripped body weight in fake jewelry while her shiny red nails were so sharp looking that they could cut through rope. She came over and only made a brief glance into the crib before her arm stretched over to the clock radio sitting beside it.

**[11:01 WED 18]**

With a turn of a dial, the music and singing became much louder and further muffled the crying infant. The woman waltzed back to the kitchen afterwards. The child was left to wail on their own, further distressed from the glaring music that flooded the entire house. Three additional songs ran their course and nobody came for the baby until a break in the music came while two men took over the radio with small talk.

**“-People are still** **_using_ ** **those?** **_Wake up_ ** **and get with the** **_future,_ ** **It’s 1971 and we’re still living in-”**

“Mom, the baby’s crying.”

The radio had been switched off suddenly and the chaos of the world had been interrupted by this sweet sounding voice belonging to a little girl. Curious and concerned eyes gazed over into the crib, some rosy little face that could barely reach over the bars. Her dark brown pigtails gave her a couple more inches above her head.

“So? That’s why I turned up the volume! I ain’t fuckin doin anything for it, s’a horrible little  _ shitstain  _ and it can  **_deal!”_ **

The woman, her voice was harsh and grating as she snapped at her daughter.

The girl tilted her head and spoke up again to her mother.

“Mom, I think he’s  _ hungry.” _

Her mother screamed back, a more painful sound than the whines and cries of the needing baby.

“I-Don’t.  **_CARE!!_ ** _ Let  _ it fucking die, it  _ deserves it! _ Why do I have to even-.”

The voice trailed off as she stomped away into another room, leaving the girl alone with the squealing crib. A saddened sigh came from her.

“And we don’t have any formula again.”

She looked right into the child’s eyes, who stopped their thrashing for just a moment.

“ _ Sorry…”  _

The girl froze with that concerned yet gentle look on her face, the screaming had stopped as well. Everything ceased, all reduced to the stillness of a photo. But what kind of photo could feel so cold and hungry all the time? 

* * *

Toriel was there the moment it all stopped: she’d been a kind of nonexistent spectator even as the scene played out. Only when it ended was she permitted to walk around, to wander inside of this creation. She was there, standing beside the girl looking into the same crib. It was like looking into heartache itself, the most neglected looking baby she had ever seen in her life had paused in its cries for that grisly ‘mother’ to care for it. Of course Toriel couldn’t help them, she could only observe. She left the girl and the crib, perhaps to follow that woman wherever she went. 

This house, it didn’t seem like it was a ‘home’. There was clutter everywhere Toriel looked, general filth on every surface too. There were crumpled wads of human money paper sprawled out onto the kitchen table amidst bags of aging fast food and stagnant bottles of cheap alcohol. The horrid woman had stormed off through the kitchen, into some other kind of living space. When Toriel stepped through the doorway, another scene had started and she was restrained back to observing. 

* * *

  
  


There was yelling; there was swearing, angry feet paced around the granite tiled floor. Yet somewhere, a familiar sounding child was crying out of sight.

“What made you think it was OK to lay your hands on him like that?!”

Immediately there had been this deep and assertive male’s voice that filled the room. He sounded very upset.

“The little fucker  _ pissed all over the floor  _ again! He deserved what he got!” 

It was that woman again, but she looked different than before. Gone was the cheap and exposed outfit, replaced by a very expensive looking red dress and _real_ shiny and glittery jewelry hanging from her neck and covering most of her bony fingers. She was arguing with a stout looking man wearing a green fatigue shirt. One of the sleeves on him was rolled up and pinned to his shoulder where an arm was supposed to be and there was a name printed above one of the breast pockets. 

**RANTZ**

The man angrily ran his hand over his shaved head and thick eyebrows. 

“Well what did you expect,  _ Marge!  _ You haven’t given him a single fucking minute of your time to  _ train  _ him! What did you  _ think _ was going to happen? But I don’t care what he did, that’s  **_NO EXCUSE_ ** to hurt him because you couldn’t be bothered to be anything but a shit mother to him!”

‘Marge’ turned out to have the capability to make her voice go even higher and sound even more scary. She stomped up to the man and started aggressively throwing her hands at him.

“ **_I_ ** didn’t even  **_WANT_ ** him!!  **_WHY_ ** do I have to be  **_FORCED_ ** to waste my life something I didn’t  **_WANT,_ ** that’s not  _ FAIR!”  _

“  **‘Fair’?!** You’re bitching to me about  _ ‘ _ **_FAIR’?_ ** You wanna complain. To  **_ME_ ** about that? What’s  _ ‘fair’  _ about what you’re  _ doing  _ to this kid?! You think he  _ asked  _ to be born?! You’re treating everything like it’s  _ his  _ fault when this is all because of  _ you!  _ How do you think  _ I  _ feel?! Coming home to this  _ shit?!”  _

Marge became livid and was escalated to screaming, she stepped right up to the man’s face.

“ **_I_ ** DON’T NEED TO HEAR THIS!! I HAVE DONE.  _ NOTHING  _ BUT SELL MYSELF JUST TO KEEP THIS FAMILY AFLOAT AND YOU’RE SITTING HERE  **_JUDGING_ ** ME, SAYING THIS IS  **_MY_ ** FAULT?? Go  _ fuck  _ yourself, Baitren!” 

Her shout was immediately followed by a quick shove that almost threw Baitren off of his footing. He recovered and uttered a brief but furious growl. 

“DON’T YOU PUSH ME!” 

He retaliated by winding up and slapping Marge in her face with the back of his hand. Everything was still for the moment following the hit, then Marge burst into tears and ran for the stairs and up to her bedroom. Baitren waited to hear the door slam and the lock click into place. He calmed down pretty quickly and let out a very deep and prolonged sigh while sitting down onto a couch. He wilted some and caressed his forehead into his palm. He wasn’t alone though, and realized this when he heard light giggling from beyond his hand. There was a very small boy standing at the foot of the stairs, smiling at the closed door above, he still had urine dripping down his leg and a trickle of blood seeping from a cut in his cheek.

“Hey now, that’s not funny. You shouldn’t be laughing at that-”

Baitren got up, he didn’t really seem angry or anything. Casually approaching the child and pointing towards the bathroom across the hall.

“-Here. Let's get you cleaned up, Byran.” 

They walked away to some unseen and darkened corner of the house, out of sight before Toriel materialized again with a shiver. It felt…  _ weird,  _ everything was weird. She was mostly at a loss for all of this yet couldn’t help but feel a tinge of  _ ‘joy’  _ seeing that woman get what was coming to her. This horrid ‘mother’ she had never met before for what she had done to this child she had no idea was, seeing the abuse though was enough to warrant her disdain even if some of it was inherited from this place. Toriel could feel her mood being pulled and teased by the environment again, scruples that weren’t created by her own thoughts.

One of the frozen details of the room caught her attention for a brief digression. It was a calendar with-

‘ **US [1974] ARMY’**

**\-------------**

**(September)**

**-** printed in bold on the top alongside pictures of soldiers. How  _ wouldn’t  _ Toriel take notice to that? These didn’t look like the ones she was familiar with though, their uniforms looked much closer to what Baitren was wearing. The first nine dates were crossed out.

Who were these people though, and what relation did they have with Brainz? The fact this trip had everything to do with him was not to be forgotten or overlooked, this was all on him. But what did any of this mean? All she really could do here was follow where Baitren or Marge went, Toriel decided well quickly that she had heard enough of that shrill voice and stepped into the ground corridor. She braced herself for another ‘jump’ as she touched the edge of the particular existence shown as a black wall, the same had happened in the kitchen and she expected a pattern. 

Something else happened… 

  
  


**⚠** **⚠** **W̷̨̨̨̳̳͇̼̰̝̟̙̗̣̰͍̤̜̯̯̞̄̓̓̕̚͜͝ͅȦ̶̳̮̠̜͍̪̲̻̔͋̓͌̀̂͘͠R̴̖̃̎͊̒́̓̈́̎̈́̌̓̔̅͐͘͘͝Ņ̷̧̛̛̛̤͖̗̩̥̻̟̯̦̪̙̬̫̙̟̟̦̣̺̯̞̏́͂̑̾̿͊̄̃̎̍̔̈́͊̈́̑̈̚͝͝Ĭ̸̡̢̨̡̼͎̟̠̩̠̰̯̗̫̖̣͍̠̹͔͙͔͊̔̀̎̔̾̓̒̄͐͒̕͜͠N̷̢͙̮͕̼̬̖̬̮̗̺͖̻͔̖̩̙̖̪̻̺̲͚͋́̓̓̓̈́͊͝G̵̨̣̜̠̠̏:̷̳̥̺̞͊̈́̐̌͊̋̀͒̂̍̆̐͌͛͗̓͐̓̆̚̚͝ͅ ̵̨̡̖̙̱͔͙̱̓̒̓̈̂̀͑̓̂̏̿͋̽̌̒̌̆̽̿̉̌͐̕͜F̷̢̬͇̭̞̤̣̻͈̘̝̭̓̍̈̂̊̆͑͂͋̋̂͌́̿͂̓̄͘͝͝Į̸̡̭̟͇͕͈̜͚̥͎̀̉̿̋́̽͌̋̐̉̇̽͋̃͝L̴͕̙̞̳͎͍̏̽̀̋̓͐͋̊̓͐̑̃̕Ȩ̶̨̛̛̺̞̹̘͔̤̖͓̹̗͍͇̖̙͓̞̝̰͇͑̌̈́̋̽͆̀͑̓͛̇̒͊̂͂̊͆͜͜͠ ̴̧̘̙̟̱̫̅̌̄̆̅̔̄̾̋͋̆͌̀̑͐̎̒̆̆̃̋̓̎͘A̸̡̨͈͇̩͓͎͉̜̩̙̜̬̟͇̦̕͝Ç̴̢̥̻͖̭͈͓̖͒́͛̃́͛̈́̆̓̒͛̑̿͊̉͘͠͝͝͠C̴̻͍̠̼̱̃̏̄͛̒̉͛̑̂̾͐́̽̈́́̍̃̾̏̊͠Ȩ̸̟̖͓͓̳̙̾̒͛̉̂̿̅S̴̨̢̜̜͙̪̩̞̬̥̱͎͓̬̹͚̤͚͇̪̐ͅS̴̛͍̜̤͈̫̪̋̉́͒̀̈́̆̈́̊̋̿̚͝͠ ̸̛͚̥͇͆͌͗͂̋̂̒̂̽̓̿̌̕͘͜V̷͙̜͖̣̥͓̘̪̌̿̐̎̍̑̊I̶̧̧̲̪̗̲͎̖̙̜̖͕̯͉̮̫̘̘̪͓͛̒͑̏̆̿͆̆͌́̿̈́̒̂́͜͠O̷̧̨͕͙̣̦̩̻̮̹̬͈̺̖̟͔͇̩͚̯̗̻̪͆̈͒̃̉͛̏̕Ľ̸̛̼͙̣̳̬̰̮͖̹͔̳̭̹͖͊̑̏́̌͊͊͌̈́̈̐̒̉̾Ä̷̢̧̢̛͉̝̤̺̩̺̘̞̱̭̮̥́͊̓̕̕͝͝Ţ̴͕̤͍̺̞͙̟̼̮̣̪̙̞̆̍͋̌̌̃̎̏̈̐̌̇͛̾̌̏̕͠ͅĮ̷̮̜̣͓̖̤̣͎̠̬͙̳͓͖͔̙̖̼̪̪̦̯͆̔̑͋̈́͜O̵̡̧̝̝͍͎̘̗͙̪̜͋̐̅̄̚͠Ṇ̶̨̤̖̥̭̰̦̯̝̻̗̮͔̩̩̫͙͆̃̉̌̆͋̔͂̔͛͌̊̚͝!̴̨̛̻̝͎̪͓̝̤̳̦͔̞̪̝̞͚̝̜͎̇̑̂̿͐̈́̊̏͗̎̌̃̚͠͝ͅͅͅ** **⚠⚠**

**Ț̵̡̧̹̻͕̯̠̭̱͍͇̻̊̑̇̆̎̎͒͋͒͘̕͝͝͠͠h̶̨̝̟̖̭͉͉͊̿ę̵̩͍̮̟͍̬͚̹́̽́̌̾̏̆͌̏̈́̌̕͠͠ ̵̛̼̞̘͔̬͍̤̹̳̲̥̈́͛̏̂͒̓́̑̎̓̉̓̍͜͠͝M̶̮̜̈́̇͊̒̃̍̑̋̽͆͌̄̍̕ͅĒ̸͉̲͉̫͎̺͙̭̖͉̩̠͛͋͜M̷̨̠̤̪̩̠͈͖̱̮̓̄̓͌O̸͇̭͍͎̾͐͛̍̇͛̍̽̑͘R̴̡̢̮̼̣̟̩̭̲͓̣̺̘͔͛̈́̉̈́̑̌͗͑̀̂̿̕͜Ŷ̵̗͋̃̿͛̂̃͊̄̏̂̒͘ ̷̨̧̨̞͍̞̦͕̤͕̠̰͈̿͋͆͊͒̍̈́ͅh̷̡͉͙̙̻̻̰͈̪͚̤̺̲̹̞̅͒͋͂̓̽̾͌̂̉̎ã̷̡͇̬̖̪̱̱̲̬̥ͅş̵̡̝̙̯͙̥͙͉̮̱͚͇̎͗̂̈́̋̄͐̀͂̕͘͜͝ ̸̩̮̙͎͚̈̍̑̉̇ͅp̸̨̟̺͎̳̟̗̯͕͍͚̠͇̠̲̿͌̉̑̊͗͌͛͂̅̂̐̌͐ȩ̷̛͈̜̣̬͍̪̟̰̠̥͉̠̜̓͋͆̓͘̕r̷̨̥̙̖̮͚̠͖̬̣̣̞̝̘̳͌͐͊̿͊̆̍̋̊̓͜͠f̷̤͎̥̠͂͊̽̍̈͗͐̾̏͝o̴̥̤͍̗͎͉̙̳͉̬̜͎̿̐̑͜r̷̮̤͊̃̈͌̄̇̔͘͝͠m̸̟̘̉̈̄̿͛̉͌̔̆̒̌͛̚̕͠ẻ̵͕̗̭̲̩͔̫̖͖̐͐̏͋͐͗͂͛̽͘̚ď̴̜̺̂͝ ̴̧̩̰̣̰̰̈̂̀̅͗̔͊̿͜͝ả̷̻̌̐̃̉̅̒̓̌̄̈́͜͝n̵̟̗̣͔͈͙͈͕͙̣̔͂͂̄͘ͅ ̶̧̛̙͓̯̭̘̰̆͗̄̈́̽̄̍͠i̴̛̬͔͎̦͙̟̗̟͂̀̾̾̽͗͜͠l̴̡̧̧̥͈̳͕͔͉̳̺͔̝̼̄l̷͇̖̤͚̜̻̦̍̒̈́͜͝ͅȩ̴̢̛̼̰̖̯͚̻̣ģ̶̙̭̣̝̪̟̫̩̹̣̥̔a̸̛͓̳̬͙̱̅̆͐̉̿͠͠ḻ̵̻͇̼̺̗̻͂̎͑́̌̑͆͑͠ ̷̢̡̪̳̝̥̳̮̤̜̮̖̗̊͗̈́̓͜ò̶͙͖̞̜̱͍̞̗͙̠̲͊̐̃̌̍́̆̎̈́̌̌̑͘̕̕͜͜p̵̧̩̜͍̱̥̹͎͉̳̮̦̎̊̂̓͊̂͆̌͆̒̎̂̓́͘͝ͅḛ̷̡̬̠̟̯͇̼̔̐̄̽̊͌̆̔́̌̈́̊̑̋̊͌r̴̨̨̧̤͈͎̯̗̳̠̪̋͗̀͌̊̕ͅa̸̢͕̪͈̲̙̭̭͓̠̮͖͗̔̃̾̐̑͂̍̅̏̃̔̀̅͘t̶̡̨̟̜̩̫̯̘̩̙̩̞̲͙͖̩͆̇̋̏̈͊̊̆į̵̦͔̜̙̙͒́͐̑̎͌͒͝ỏ̶͕͗̂̿̎̌͊̈̈͊͘ņ̵̢̦̖̻̺͕̼̩̳͎̀͗̀͌̋͠͝ ̸̡͕̦͉̤̟̮͎̰̰̪̻̎̑̾͒̌̇̇̄̂̇͗̔̕͜**

**̸̢̢̺̍̈́̄̐̔̈̈́̉̿̑̑̆͝͠a̵̻̞̟̝̔̆̂͂́̓͌̿̏̕͘̕͝n̶̨̼̙͉̣͉̟̞̭̟͖̭̹̈́̌͘͜d̴̢̨̢̪̙͈̩̙͕̝̗̗̻̩̼͎̒̎̌̍̉̃͒̆̂̓͑͘ ̶̨̡̼̗̬͍̩̰͉͕̤̼͇̳̣͛̿̉̍͂̚͝w̴̛̰͉̯͕i̵̻̼̪̠̳̣̟̣̬̳̳̎̃̍͐̍̈́̋̈̋̈͊̈͘͝͠l̶̨̡̗͚̜̫͇͓̯̺̦̲͓͈̙̹̈́͆͌͒̃͐͆̒͊̆̉̓͐l̴̢̨̧̪̰̱̠͎̱͐̋̒̆͊̋̑̓̈́͘͜͝͝ͅ ̸̨̛͇͍̰̭̦̺͔̩̳̝̊̇̑̾́ḃ̷̧͉̜̜̣͓̜͙͔̝͈̦̮̘͛̋͌̈͂͝ͅę̷̡̢͎̟͙͎̟̩̤̼͇̬̗̠̒̒͌̉̉̋̆̓̌̃̽̊̚ ̶͖͚͎̜̹̩̬̩͂̈̕ͅT̴̲̣͍͚͇̞̀͒̈͜͜E̵̡͉͔͓͇̠̳̮̖̳͚̊́̅̽̓͊̅̅̋̿̃͘̕͜͝Ȑ̶̡̛̥͓͍̯͛̊̓̔͝M̷̦̍̊̈́̇̿͑̍̊̈́̉̊̒̃͂̕Ï̴̢̢̙͇̜̙̦̓͘N̸̨̞̜̼͎̙͕͚͓̭͈̰̱̪̅̀̋̂͐̄Â̷̡̢̪͍͖̘̼͙̜̻̻̈́͗̒̋̐̇̂̐̐̎̍͗͛̈́͘ͅT̸̯͍̠̈́͌̕͝͠Ê̷̝͖̠̯̄̓̅̌̉̓̆̔̋͑͆͠͝D̴̨̢̟͉̞̯̳̞̗̙͆̒́̌͋̂̀**

**̸̡̫̙̱͙͎̈́̽̏̊̒̒̄̓͋̋̿͘͘͠**

**̶̣̪͎̲̖̒̏̂̐͂̔̍̓͋̕͝͠Ȋ̵̲̤̜̀̒̔f̷̢̡̨̧̜̗̗̘̖̬̮̥̙̐̒̓͋͆̇̒̈́̾̓̾̚͘̕͝ ̶̡̛̘̹̖͙̳̙̟͉̰̤̲̩̋̏͑́̉̍̊̚͜͠ͅͅẗ̷̨̳̠̣̦̗̮̪̩͖̟̮̙̖̲̉̏͐̎͊̈́̋̃h̷̡̩͕̫̥͕̃ȩ̶̡̹̺̣̫̳̜͕̱͓̳͔̟̭̊̂̂̓̀̕͜͝ ̸̮̜̅̄̄̈̀̊̑̏̋͠p̶̙̟̝̳̹̯̞̅͛̈͐̈́͆̊̌̋̚r̸̭̙̺̦̮̺̊͂̽͂̚o̷̠̙̝͉̬͙͖͇̊͒̈̈́̓b̵̨̙̳̭̘͎͔̮̗̼́͠ͅl̵̨̯̻̪̥̫̣͙̊͋̀̊̌͂ͅè̵̩͚͇̘͙͔̃̌̀́̂̎̋̔̊͘͝ͅm̴̢̮͚̹̫̥̫̻̳͍̯̝͍͊̏̓͐͗̈́̅͘̕͝ ̶̡̛̛͉͓̦͓͇͉̣̩͇̈̿͊͗͂͋͘ͅͅp̶̬̺̄̑̈́̊̊̈̒͐̈̚͘e̵̡̺̳͎̥͍̗̮̪̻̼̯͍̰̽̃̿̉̚͘̕͝͝r̵̡̛͈̞͓͉̰̻̲̲̙̻͇̱͓̂͒͒̄̊̑̔͝͠s̵̝̥̞̊̆̄̌̈́̽̃̒i̴͈̠̻̬̯͔̹̱̮͖͚̮̾̑̽̈́̽s̶̨̡̞̘̅̌̃̄̇̾̈́̋̌̋̈͘̚͜͝t̶͉̝͔̓̈̍ͅṡ̴͇̪̺͙͓̻̥̭̥̯̮̼͕̔̐̿̌̈́͛̔̓̾̂͘̕͜͠|̷̡̧̞̥̳͈̲͕͇͍͉̠͍̓́̈́̇̓͂̆̐͂̕͘͘͝͝ͅ|̴̨͈̟̱͕̌̈́͜:̴̨̠͉̝̙̤̳͙̠͎͚̩̠̠͚̄̏͠G̴̡̫͎̼͉̑̇͆̈́̿̓͝ͅI̶̡̢̼̙̥̤͕̩͇̜̱̰͉̙͊̌̽̇̓̿̑̅̈̊̇̕͘̚̚͝V̷̭̠̝́̐͊̍͗͌̌͋̀̽̿͘͝Ẹ̸̡͕̤̜̣̍̍ ̸̬̱̞̱̰͉̺̪̼̱́̆̈́̿͌͋̕Ü̵̢̟͍͌͑̇̀̏͗̎́P̷̗̳͔̠̝̠̄͐͒̂͝ ̴̨͉͕̘̣̭͊̃̓̓̔͗̏̍̐̓̊͐H̷̛̹̲̞̦̪̮̭̜͚̭͍̝̩̙̄͛͒͂̍̈́̉̈̓͂̚͝Ḙ̴̤̻̯̣̞͔̭̊́̎̈́̐̈́̍͝ͅR̶̢̰̜͒̇̎E̴̦̭̝̜͉͍̗͙̥̭̳̜̜͂̌̈́̌̉͋͜:̷̢̛̜͔̯͎̬̝̲̇̎̓|̸͙͍̋̇̃̏̋͂͒̊̾̋͝͠͠ͅ|̵̢̛͕̪͚̘̠̌͋̄̃͒̈̕͜ͅ**

  
  


* * *

  
  


Everything went  **_RED_ ** for a moment and then… Toriel was sitting back in her chair, looking out of a window in her own living room.

“Wha?.. What just happened??”

She had a belated shock from jumping awake, leaping out of her chair and frantically looking around. The grogginess in her head though made her sit right back down. Toriel was forced to introspect lest she suffer vertigo. 

“What does ‘vertigo’ mean?” 

Who said that anyway? It must have just been residual dream interference. Did this mean though that…  _ everything  _ was just a long and gnarled nightmare? God… it was so  _ vivid  _ though, and some of the things in it: Toriel never knew she was  _ capable  _ of imagining such visceral horror! But after everything she had been through, it wasn't a surprise that she was as messed up in the head as needed to dream all that. She wanted to get up again, quickly too: everything was frantic and she had to rush before…what? There was nothing going on, getting up from the deep imprint in the chair lead her to discover that: there were no soldiers, there was no destruction, nobody had come here and she was alone. She  _ always  _ was alone, none of what had happened to her was actually real. 

She felt a great sense of relief wash over her, she felt  _ happy. _

“But…”

She had nothing and no one to argue with. Toriel made for the guest bedroom and urgently yet carefully opened the door as to not disturb anyone inside, but there was nobody in there… It looked just as she had left it. The door clicked shut and Toriel gave herself an enlightened kind of sigh. Everything was fine and it would be business as usual… Maybe she just prepared the pie wrong and gave herself nightmares. 

“But I do not usually  _ make  _ pie when there is… no one to share it with.  _ Did I?  _ I cannot remember.” 

Her head was throbbing something fierce. She would get headaches sometimes, right? She was too disoriented to really ponder on that, the bad dream had left her feeling weird and confused. Toriel felt like she needed to sleep in her real bed.

But she didn’t yet, she felt like wasting more of her time by walking into her front yard as if to expect the imaginary soldiers or that human to come barreling through at any moment. 

**_But nobody came…_ **

There was nothing out of the ordinary, this was just another day in solitude for her that passed: all she had left to do was get into bed to start the  _ next  _ one: it  _ really  _ wasn’t that hard. Toriel  _ still  _ was acting like she was in her dream and aimlessly looking around at a whole bunch of  _ nothing. _

“Something is not right…” 

Everything was  _ fine.  _ She was just finding reasons to make a big deal out of nothing because she was still spooked from her delusion. She’d be much better in the morning if she just went back to sleep.  **_Everything is FINE._ **

“No…”

W̷h̴y̸ ̶a̸r̴e̵ ̴y̵o̸u̶ ̵h̶a̷v̷i̴n̶g̴ ̸s̴u̸c̸h̸ ̶a̶ ̴p̸r̷obl̴e̵m̴?

̸I̷t̶'̵s̶ ̷O̷V̷E̶R̶

“This is  _ not  _ my life. It feels much too  **_content_ ** **to be mine** **_…”_ **

  
  
  


**ą̵̢͚̟͔̳̼͋͂̆n̴̺̈́̃̎d̸̨̛́̈́͛̎̎ ̵̗͚̤̘͍̬͎͙̓̈́̒͑̿ẏ̵̼̞̩̯̯̞͉̈́̀̈͆͝o̴̡̤̬̳̥͕̔̏̌͗̓͗̿̊ͅͅứ̶̰̩̥͖̼̽̍̒̏͝͝ ̷̥͊̌̎̽͒w̴͎̼̙͖̻̻͙̖͂͐̀̾̐̾͜o̸̧̪̭͈͐̀̃̅͜͝ǘ̶̖͈͉̙̦͆̈l̷̩͓̤̲̂͋̋̔͆̋̍̚d̵̯̹͔̭̱̼̲̉̿ ̸̨̻̯̫̬͙̮̔̈́̐̍̔̒̕͝P̸̠̹͙̣̘̫̂R̷̡̻͇̞̣̮͛̍̐͒Ė̷̲̹͕͑̆̈́̕͝͝F̴̧̛̬̗͇͉̤̲̈́̈́͆Ě̸͔̫̰̑͂̄͂R̸̗̗̅͊ ̶̢͖̠̪̤̜̣̈̌̐w̸̡̛̙̥͔̹̓̂̈̏͑̋̇͜h̵̡̲̬̠̹̙̰̾̚ȅ̸͓̲̞͆͂̓r̷̜̼̽̊̊e̷̲̺̝̞̫͌̿̌͐̆͂͠ ̶̨̺͎̣̮̬̅ÿ̵̢̳̳̣͗̀̆̃̓͛͠͠ó̵̝̲͕̞̠̬̇̓̄͋̊͂u̶̡̠͖̹̭͈̓̋̑̔̏̃̇ ̶͓͔̠͚͇͂͐̽ṕ̴̥̯͋͝û̵̡͓̥̜̪ṭ̶̻̫̮͇͕̱̊̂̆̅̅̕͝ ̷̧̛̳̠͈͉͍̋͂̐̅͆͆̆͜y̴͚͚̦̹̋o̷͚̮͇̳̲̰͐̋̿̾̽͌̈́͜u̷̧̨̘͓̘͓̠̦͒̑̓̾͆́̔͜r̷͕͈̩̤̅s̸͇͙̲̖͖̲̪̒̉̎͆̓͒̌̄̍e̵̡̨͚̺̫̩̟͐̈́̕͜͝l̷̢̙͈̘̱̝̠͋͜f̶̛͕̺͓̄̔̃͛͌͝͠ ̴̨̢͍̜͉̩̼̘̈́̋̅̅̑̚ ̶̡̞̱̟̝̣̈͐͜Į̶̯̭͇͙̠̬̤͚̎͑͆̚͝N̶̜̲̪̰̣̞͍̮̈́̎̑͆̿̐̅̃S̴͖͔̮͉̲̺̗̿Ṯ̵̛̠͚͎̺̪͎̦̮̇̌E̸͎̭̤̻͋͐̊̋̈́͘Ą̵͒͌͛D̸̨͉̭̞̮̗̘̃̇̉͗͐ ̷̬̪̗͌͜**

**̵̖͐͋͝Y̷̧͔͚͍̩̬̫̤̹͆͐̾̽͝o̸̰̩̬͚̥͙̭͋̆̒ư̵̗̫̱͋̄̽̄̓̒ ̷̼̒̏̈́̂n̶͖̲̺̹̓̃͐̾o̶͍͓͈̾̈́̾̿̽̃s̵͔̼͇͒͋̽̉͂̚͝ͅý̷͖̗͔͓͍̃͊͐̕͠ ̵̢̟̫̦̰͐̍͗͆̈́̂͠p̷͙̖̊͋͋̕͠i̵̡̥͖̤̜̒̒̂ͅe̶̹̜̥͎͇̋̑͊̀̋̍͝c̶͎̻͈͋̇̂e̸̠͓̜͉̳̝̤̫̔̓̌͒̌̿͌͗͜ ̸̭͈̱̩̟̣̙̑̓ͅo̶̥̞̪͇͋̆f̶̩̹̹̺͙͚̻̽̂̔̇̍̊͜ ̶̛̖͉̠͇̗̙͉͋̇͛̐̆̀ͅŞ̸̢̥̟͓͆H̷̻̬̖͔͓̻̆̍̔̑͊̓̂͜Ỉ̷̡̩Ť̶̹̖̼̱!̵̦͎̖̬̭̹̜̋̊̉͘͠͝ ̷̨̟͎̭̱̗̃̎̅̆͛͆͜**

**̶̡̬͙͙̲̯̼̰̀̈́̕D̷̨̗̬̱͍̥̮̓̎̑Ǫ̶̣͕̤̩̩̈́̈́̋̏̍̇͑̚͠ ̷̧̗͍̘̥̭͐̍̂̏͑̈́͠Ñ̴̡̙̓͐̀̚͝O̵̝̝͕̓̿̔̎̒͑̐̕T̴̛̗͙̬̺͚̥̖̎́̔͜ ̵̦̲̙̘̗̻̓́̄̎̊̉̕Ǐ̸̧̛͇̻̞̖̆̕N̴̯͍̏̎̇̅͜T̴̖͉̺̞̜̫͔͜͝Ę̸̤̈́̌̇̐̚͘͝R̵̡̹͎̠̫̱̫̲͓̆̉̆͘F̴̭̥̪͓̋̿̇Ë̶͈͇̲͓̭́̀̌̅̐̍̏R̷̡̧̢̗̥̩̝͕̩̓̿͂͊̌͐̏Ẹ̸͈̽́̏̂̇ ̷̮̑W̴̡̨̜͖̍̎̏́͘͠ͅİ̶̛̬̬̤̥̯̙͓̩̄͊͋̿T̶̩̘͌H̵͓̭̝̽̓͗̍ ̴̮̃̾̓͛̃́T̷͍̫͇͔̼̟̏̊̓̋͗̔̕H̶̛̫̽̈́͠I̷̧̛͉̯̠̝͓̼̓͐̈́̕͜S̵̨̃̑̓̍́̔.̸̺̳̻̞̮̤͕̠͒͋̄**

  
  


“This is clearly not real…What am I to  _ do  _ though?”

Then she remembered something. Toriel lifted one of her claws up to her mouth and felt another way to relate to Brainz. That thing he did in her home ages ago made a hell of a lotta sense now. She wondered if she still shared the state of ‘realness’ with him and then bit down on her digit,  **hard.** She didn’t feel a thing, but that didn’t stop it from spurting a stream of red smoke from where her teeth tore it. That unnatural mood seeped out of her with the red, her emotions were hers again and yet she wasn’t scared of what was happening. 

The smoke caused the walls to peel like paint: doors, frames, woodwork and everything. Toriel’s ‘home’ dissociated like wrapping paper sliding off of a present. There was something under all the deception and familiar feelings, an entirely different space waiting to host her. Right before the last of her world was gone, she could see a pair of even redder feet stomping through her front door and advancing at her from beneath the smoke. They sounded  _ angry- _

T̸̢͙̹̩̹̼͇͌͊̍̇̈́̾͠h̵̛̞̟͍͔̞̠͂̑i̶̛̳̝̠̪͂̕s̵͎̣͒͑͘ ̶̢̛̜̗̭͕͓̟͒̐ï̶̥̲̺̯̻̻̃̒͘ṣ̴̐̆̐͠n̴̗̩̝͕̊͗͂̐͛̈̓͜͠'̷̭̌̕͝t̷̤̻̠̿͑ ̶̰̣͎̹̩̝̘̌̋͋̾̇͆͛̊ơ̵̲͍̱̝̺͕̱͌̑̓̔̕v̸͕͈͇̂̇̐̾͂̋͝ȅ̸͕̥͔̯͙̇̒̚r̶̢̼͆̊͆̔̋̕.̷͇̈́͝.̶̡͎͠.̶͕̼̘͂͘ ̴̨̳̹͔̂̅͊̏͌

* * *

-but they were discarded along with her home. When the smoke had cleared, Toriel found herself in a completely different place. 

It was dark and dingy and looked a lot smaller than the abusive domicile she started in. It was also in a terrible state of clutter and mess, maybe even worse as there were cardboard boxes stacked up to the ceiling in every corner. The ‘living room’ didn’t look too fit for any living or lounging as it had no furniture in it, the kitchen was a lot smaller and had its own kind of clutter of plastic bags and room temperature TV dinners. 

The door nearest to the kitchen clicked and rattled, it opened up after its locks did. Enter, a person who crept in and locked the apartment up after they crept inside. They let out a sigh and staggered over to the middle of the room before hitting the lights and basking everything in the dim light from a jaundiced bulb in the ceiling. 

“ _ Ohh.  _ My stars…”

This would have been another person Toriel had never seen before, but then she saw his features in the light and it all lined up finally. This was an adolescent looking guy wrapping up his teenage years from the look of his height and slender build. He would’ve retained that same baby face she saw before it wasn’t so dragged down by the bags under his eyes and severe  _ gaunt.  _ There was more to it though, his face was marred by three rather sizable and grisly looking scars: one crossing his left eye, one traveling across the bridge of his nose, and one stretching from the corner of his mouth up to his cheek. The very same scars Brainz had in the very same places when Toriel first saw him… because this  _ was  _ Brainz. Well, this was actually Byran Rantz. 

“Your real name was  _ Byran…” _

Utter awe had taken over Toriel’s thoughts, it was like the scars on young Byran’s face were fissures where light could finally shine through this haze. These disconnected places and feelings were his  _ memories.  _ Of course Toriel couldn’t interact with anything, this was just a playback of the past. But  _ why  _ was she here, and  _ how? _ Perhaps this wasn’t the best time to ponder on that, right now her main concern sat down onto a stool.

Byran had come through the door in some drab getup: complete with a filthy apron, rubber kitchen gloves caked with a whole lot of  _ ‘somethings’,  _ and some kind of net stuck to the top of his head which he promptly took off and released his messy hair from its prison. He was ‘missing’ some things though; when Byran rolled up his sleeves, Toriel wouldn’t find any tattoos on his arms. His eyes were both green, his natural color. When he let out the third yawn within a minute, nary a silver fang glistened or showed through the slight recession in his lips. Lastly, when the rubber gloves came off: Byran still had all of his fingers in full. Honestly he looked almost  _ nothing  _ like Brainz and if it wasn’t for the scars, Toriel may have never made the connection. Then again, the lost look on his face was hard not to notice: given the atrocities Toriel got to witness from earlier in his life, it didn’t seem like much of a surprise. 

What about now though? While he didn’t look very happy, reflected by his depressing looking quarters: it didn’t seem like Byran was really up to anything really  _ dubious.  _ Then again, what happened to Baitren and Marge and the ‘Rantz Family House’ (There was no way in hell Toriel was going to refer to that as a home)? Toriel was aware that humans had a tendency of going on their own at a ridiculously comparable early age to monsters, but this seemed a little  _ too  _ early for Byran to be all by himself. Maybe it was good for him to get away from that she-beast, but what of the little girl or their father? 

Byran finished de-stressing all of his aching joints and got up from the stool, making for the leftmost door at the end of a narrow hallway. Toriel couldn’t follow or anything, being she was still as a disembodied spectator in a static position. A door shut and five minutes later it shut again, Byran returned to his stool with more comfortable looking clothes… and a handful of tiny capsules and pills.

“Oh no.” 

Immediately, Toriel thought about the green pills she took from Brainz’s pocket. There was no way this could be good. Byran seemed to have trouble downing them, but a cup of water helped him out. As soon as he was done, a telephone mounted to the wall rang. The young man casually got up and answered it, slouching into a lean onto the wall. 

“Hello?”

Strangely, despite this being a memory: Toriel couldn’t hear the other person on the line. It was like she was standing too far away to make anything out besides buzzing. She’d only get half of the conversation from Byran.

“Yeahh, I just got home… Nahh, it wasn’t  _ that  _ bad today… No no, just dishwashing. To be honest, I think they’re keeping me in the kitchen because they don’t want to scare anybody with my face… I know you keep telling me it’s not that  _ bad _ , but I still don’t look ‘good’... But… But… OK.Ok… No no, you don’t have to call the place to complain, it’s fine. I like not having to deal with people anyways-”

So now there was somebody else in his life, at least it seemed like he was happy to talk to this person. There was no mistaking how his face lit up a bit when the phone rang. Byran spent the next couple of minutes just nodding and giving some affirmation grunts while he coiled the phone cord around his fingers. 

“- mhm, yeah…  _ Tomorrow,  _ they’re gonna pay me tomorrow…  _ No,  _ I haven’t asked them how much I’m going to get yet…  _ Yeah,  _ but I don’t wanna start anything with them… We’ll find out tomorrow… It  _ should  _ be good, I’m only  **two** under forty hours a week and when I turn eighteen I’m going to up that even more… No, it’s not  _ really  _ that bad, I kind of  _ like _ being at work because it actually gives me something to do when you’re not here, I  _ want  _ to work more-”

He discussed some more. There was a lot of stuff Toriel didn’t understand, but the tail end of the conversation applied to her once more. Byran grunted and sounded irritated, retaliating as if he was the recipient of nagging. He even rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“-Yes…  _ yes… Yessss  _ I  _ just  _ took my pills, right before you called me… I  _ kn _ _ ow  _ I can’t miss a single one. Like I said, I just took them. I keep the bottles by my bed so they’re the first thing I see every morning… Uh-huh, there’s only five left in each one and we’re gonna get them refilled when I meet my probation officer this week… He’s really not that bad. For a  _ cop  _ that is… We’ll see-”

‘Probation Officer’ wasn’t a term Toriel was really familiar with, but she had the gist that it was some kind of police like  _ Mordegrid  _ was… She still had a lot of questions about that, but right now: So the police  _ wanted _ him to take these pills? Did this have any relation to the ones underground? Brainz wasn’t on good  _ terms  _ with the police then, it looked here that Byran  _ was.  _ What happened that changed all of that? God, for every piece of knowing Toriel was fed about Brainz, she’d have three more questions she couldn’t answer. For now though, Byran was about finished with his phone call.

“-Alright, I’ll see you on Monday… Love you too, Bye.” 

He hung up the phone and sighed again. What followed after this was… a whole lot of  _ nothing _ , really: Byran got another drink, heated up one of those TV dinners on some shoddy looking stove, paced around a bit, fiddled with some boxes without really unpacking anything besides a couple of books, and he read a little on and off. This went on until light stopped coming in through the small windows. In fact, this went on as the windows lit up… and went dark, over and over. Day after day, the same thing. 

Was this  _ really  _ what his younger life was? Or was Toriel seeing a reenactment of  _ her  _ life?? This was almost soul crushing to watch even though it wasn’t anywhere  _ near  _ as harrowing as some of the stuff she had witnessed in here! Byran was  _ alone  _ like her and even though he had somebody else apparently, it almost felt worse than Toriel’s solitude. She related to  ~~Brainz~~ Byran  _ again…  _ and she felt worse about what she did to him  **_AGAIN._ **

What really followed here was like a montage or a slideshow of his daily life in this cramped apartment. Toriel would see him leave and enter wearing that same filthy uniform over and over. The apartment changed bit by bit over time, but it still looked really inhospitable no matter how much secondhand furniture found its way in. She never saw anybody else enter except him… Maybe that’s because this memory didn’t ‘want’ to show her anybody else. Things continued like this for what felt like a long time, Toriel almost felt like she was going to be trapped here like this, just how she was trapped in her own home… metaphorically. 

She had a lot of meandering to go through before something interesting would occur… It was alright through: she was used to this kind of thing.

  
  
  
  



	3. 02

“Heyyy, Mr.  _ Rantz _ is it?”

_ That  _ wasn’t Byran’s voice she heard. Toriel would look at the door and see that the person entering it  _ wasn’t  _ Byran Rantz. Byran opened his door for the guy.

“Uhh-actually Mister Rantz was my father. Byran’s fine, come on in.”

“Ohhhh, I am. I am  _ Terribly _ sorry about that, chief.”

“Don’t sweat it. Here, why don’tcha sit down?”

He carefully clicked the door shut behind them and clicked all of the locks into place.

This was the first time Toriel had seen anybody other than Byran in this apartment and it was the first time she had seen  _ this  _ particular person. Kind of a big and jolly looking guy wearing a business suit complete with hat and briefcase. He came in and sat it down next to a proper chair part of an actual dining set, modestly sized table and all. In fact, the apartment looked like it was in far better shape than… usual. The kitchen wasn’t a mess of aluminum trays or plastic bags, it had some foodstuffs sitting atop the counters but to some degree of organization. The living room looked good too, it had an old TV and a big sofa facing it. There was even a small bookshelf halfway stocked with paperbacks. 

Byran himself looked a bit different too, he got taller… That was about the extent of it actually. He sounded older and had a bit of facial hair though, but was still nowhere close to Brainz. Byran pulled out a seat opposite of his guest at the table, he didn’t sit down yet though.

“Like anything? Water maybe? No? Alright.”

Now he sat down, folded his hands, and cleared his throat.

“ _ Well  _ erm.  _ Mmh.  _ So I was told that you uh, that you  _ knew  _ ahh-Baitren- ah,  _ my father,  _ Baitren Rantz. Is that right?”

He sounded quite a bit unsure of himself, he was probably nervous.

His guest was a little slow on the words too.

“Uhhh  _ yes _ actually. That is right. I-eyy  _ did some business  _ with your father a couple of times in the past. Weee uhh, yeah a couple of times."

“Were you and him close, any?”

Byran was intrigued. 

“Ahhh… I’m afraid  _ not.  _ He and I were really ‘acquainted’ on the business side, He kept our meetings strict with uh… not a lot of small talk really. In and out. I never really got to know him as I’m sure  _ you  _ did… like uh… oh, his  _ arm.  _ What happened with that anyway if I can ask? I always meant to ask’im, but I uhh, he never seemed interested in talkin about himself.”

Byran leaned back, his chair creaked with his shifting weight.

“Oh yeah?  _ Well…  _ my father fought in Vietnam, he toldja at least that, right?”

The man’s eyes widened and his voice picked up an octave.

“Nooo. He  _ didn’t  _ actually… He was a soldier? Is that how he lost his arm?” 

“Oh  _ jeez,  _ he really didn’t tell you anything, huh? Well uuhh,  _ yeah.  _ He was there from 67’ to 71’.  **_Rifleman._ ** A damn  _ good  _ one too, taught me everything I know about hitting your mark. He killed about  _ 30  _ Vietcongs before they even saw it comin, he told me-”

Byran had a brief chuckle and brought up what he found so amusing. It was relevant. 

“- He was also something else  _ real  _ up close too. Got into a scrap with about five of em or so and he cut them all up with his knife. This freaking guy, I mean… He could probably step into that mosquito resort jungle with nothin but a combat knife and he’d be king…  _ 50  _ of him and we probably woulda won the war if you ask me. ” 

Byran grinned a little bit from the fantasy of all that, he saw the slight bit of incredulity in his guest’s face and cleared his throat again.

“ _ Anyway,  _ he was doin quite fine for himself and this country. And then he started getting these  _ letters-” _

He shook his hands a bit to mark another new (but also very relevant) topic.

“-Before he really left for the war and anything. My father met and erhm…  **_fell for-”_ **

Byran rolled his still emerald green eyes. 

“- this young woman-”

His guest interrupted him by answering a question that wasn’t asked.

“Your mother?” 

“Yeah-yeah sure, whatever. Anyway: fell in love with her, made some kind of a life with each other... and then he was called to service. He was already  _ enlisted I think??  _ But the draft wasn't till a a year  _ later?  _ I dunno, I don’t quite remember. Point is, he had to leave her to go fight in the war.”

“Ohh, that’s unfortunate.”

Byran shrugged.

“Ehh, he told her not to worry. There was no way these guys were gonna end up killing him. In fact, he told my mother that he’d be back after he ‘put  **a hundred** gooks into the ground’ he said you’d kill one hundred and you’d get to go home.”

There was an amused exhale from both of them. Byran shrugged again.

“Now I dunno about if that was all _true,_ but he’d be the one to find out. I mean. He got up to **_35_** so easily so I _dunnoooo…_ He woulda gotten there if umm..”

All the digressions had caused him to forget what was supposed to come next. It was a good thing his guest was actually paying attention and spoke up, despite being on the bored side. 

“The letters?”

Byran snapped his fingers and pointed to the guy.

“Yes! The letters. Thank you. My father was doing just fine in Vietnam, when he got hold of a  _ bunch  _ a bunch of letters to him. It had taken them more than enough time to reach him and when he finally got to  _ read _ them: he found out that he  _ left  _ something in the states with his… lover. She had been pregnant and had their child while he was away…”

The guest tilted his head slightly and raised a brow.

“You, I’m guessing?” 

Byran was very dismissive.

“ **No…** I’m another story, not as interesting as this one though…  _ Anywho,  _ yeah. Woman had a kid, she was all on her own without a  _ job  _ or really  _ anything  _ in terms of skills or how to take care of kid, less herself. She was begging him to be alive and begging him to come ‘home.’”

“Did the army  _ let him?  _ Go on leave or something?”

Byran sneered and shook his head.

“ _ Course not.  _ Why would the government be so nice? No.”

The man took a guess, perhaps to avoid another five minutes of talking from Byran.

“They let him go after he lost his arm, didn’t they?”

“Mmmn- _ hm. _ He was out with his squad clearing a road and they got ambushed. He tripped, his right arm disturbed a landmine. No more arm, no more army: one of his squadmates dragged him back and he pulled through just so they could get rid of him. He came home in April of  **1971.** His child was four years old by then and  _ I…  _ wasn’t wasn’t even one by that time. Y'know what I think though? I think he woulda been able to spot that trap a mile away if he hadn't been thrown off by wanting to get home and all, so if you ask me: if it wasn't for the letters then he'd still have two arms."

Again, Byran’s guest was paying attention. Enough that something bothered him enough to interrupt and prolong this. 

“Wait a minute, you said your father was in Vietnam from 67’ to 71’, how could you be less than a year old when he came home? Did you mean to say that he had you  _ after  _ he came home?”

Byran was stricken with a brief pause. His face changed to something indifferent looking and he shook his head once more. 

“No, I was already there when he came home.”

“But that’s impossible, how could he have created you if he was still  _ over  _ there?” 

“ **He** **_didn’t…”_ **

“... wait, you’re not saying-”

“Yes.” 

“Oh my,  _ god…-” _

The man couldn’t conceal his surprise. He felt the need to remove his hat, letting his receded hairline breathe a little.

“- _ Hooof…  _ That’s. I am so  _ very  _ sorry for your- How do you  _ know  _ exactly? Did your father tell you all this?”

Again, it really didn’t seem like Byran was all that  _ bothered _ about this. This was probably attested to why he was so fine with sharing this out to the open. 

“Mnh-mnnh, I figured it out on my own not too long ago-”

He forced a pretty convincing laugh.

“-but you could  _ imagine  _ my surprise when I got to that point. They’d been dead for over ten years so it wasn’t like I could call them up and ask about it.”

“That’s  _ rough  _ man, I’m sorry.”

“ _ Ehh,  _ don’t worry about it. It’s just one of those things I had to push into the pit and let it be, s’not like caterwauling over it’s gonna do anything good.”

The air in the small apartment had become tense with a tinge of awkwardness despite Byran’s best efforts. A quick silence precluded the next question from his guest.

“So. Tell me if I’m prying too much but, who  _ is  _ your real father then? Do you know?”

Bryan didn’t seem too OK with this one. 

“ _ Hey…” _

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to over-”

“No-no, I don’t care about you asking. It’s fine, _really._ Answer’s **_no_** by the way, don’t know who my sperm donor is and probably never will. But my ‘real father’ was Baitren Rantz. You’d ask either of us and I’d still be his real son and he’d still be my real dad. Nobody coulda been more of a Dad to me than he."

“Wow. Sounds like he was a real ‘good guy’, I’m sorry he’s not here now.”

Byran hummed sadly-

“Thank you, it’s alright.”

-but he clapped his hands together and completely negated his attitude.

“But hey,  _ I’m  _ sorry for borin ya for twenty minutes, I got very carried away- you got the receipts?”

Topic officially changed, the man put his hat back on and brought his briefcase to the table.

“Yes I  _ doo,  _ I got em xeroxed and ready to go on your click- Take a look at em to make sure they fit with ya.”

“ _ Can do.  _ I’ll call my bud on the other end, he’ll give us the address and we’ll be all set-”

He was handed a slip of paper and started pursuing it. 

“-let’s see now. We got three orders of-”

**M̷̢͔̰̙͈͋͒͐͌E̷͓̲̖̝͒͂̾M̸̖͇͍̰̿̚͜Ô̴̦͚̠̩̦̪Ř̵͉̘̮̯͒͘Y̴̡̪͖̫͑̃̔ ̸̡͖̭̺͐̿͝A̷̻̔͛̿̐C̶̛͈̳̖̲̟̽͑̉̃͐C̴̖͇̝͊Ȇ̸̗͊̋͌S̶̡̩͇̦͊̅͋͜Ş̷̯̭̜̲̆̏̅̓ͅ ̶̪̦̭̆͛̕͘V̶̛̪̄̃̕ͅȈ̸̡̘̹͕̯̈̆O̶̭͗L̸̼̻̐̽͠͠Ä̷̝͙́̊T̷̪͔̯̼̮͕̾͊I̷̖̓Ô̶̡̰͈̜̼̪̂̈́̇̒͝N̸̨̙̹̪̊ ̵̨̞̹̗̠̿̽̆̆̌ͅḐ̵̢̧̩̳̰̈̄͋̋̍Ë̶̡̘̱̞̖̱́͒̃͗̚̕T̶͕̺̺̓Ȩ̸̘̗́C̴̨̥̙̲̥͗̊̔͒̚T̵͓͙͓̀̽̈́̍E̶̬̗̓͋D̶͖͕͙̲̙̙̓̑**

**̸̗͖͉̘̮̝̍T̷̯̍̄Ḛ̵̢͍̩̮̦͐͘R̴̛͍͕̼͉̣͉̆̏̈́͂M̵̟̖̦̋̍I̶̤̲̺͒͌Ń̴͉͖͘A̷̛͉͓͍̼̓̽̚̕͝T̷͚̻͔͔̜̽̐͆̔͊I̷̳̬̎̋͌̓̐N̶̨͋̿͌͂̀G̴̢͎̔̆ ̷̻̂͐Ṁ̶̩̦̙̝͍̆̓͝ͅE̷͕̰͈͐̋M̶͎̃̋̈̊O̷̳͋̈́̽͑͝͠R̵̡̛͖̻̼̙̫͐̃̓͠Y̷̨̝̮̠͂̿̚ͅ**

* * *

* * *

  
  
  


Everything went dark.

Everything became quiet. 

Toriel was back to being herself again, in it that she was able to  _ move  _ and the works… But it didn’t do her much good now. She had been a ‘spectator’ for so long that the disorientation felt more like body dysphoria. Any sense of spatial awareness was gone the moment the lights went out.

“What just happened?”

What had  _ happened  _ was that this hole had gotten so much deeper. As if Byran being mistreated as soon as he was  _ born  _ wasn’t bad enough, it had to start  _ before  _ that. Having to spend a sizable piece of his life in soul crushing boredom and loneliness was just  _ ‘great’  _ too. No wonder why Brainz was so against sharing any aspect of his life with Toriel, she could have killed him with how tightly she’d just pick him up and squeeze him. Why feel like  _ her _ life was terrible when she got to meet someone who arguably had it worse than her, how about making  _ sure  _ his life was now worse than hers? 

What happened to  _ Toriel _ though, was as if the apartment had a power outage that left her fumbling in the dark. 

“Hello?...  _ Byran?”  _

Why would that accomplish anything? Toriel really didn’t know why she said that, she sure wished he was here with her just so they didn’t have to be alone. She didn’t like the dark at all, it was one of those things that always made her fur stand up all straight and prickly. This felt different than the usual kind of darkness she was already familiar with, Toriel felt incredibly uneasy and a great desire to leave this place. 

Toriel tried for the first time since she died to use her magic to make a torch for herself. She couldn’t do it though. Usually she would feel her magic coursing through here to where it needed to go. It was a force that existed inside of every monster and you learned how to hone, nurture and guide it as you mastered magic and your own capabilities. It was a thing inside of you, you could  _ feel  _ it as you channeled it and you could feel its fatigue when you exhausted it or were trying to push it too hard. Here though… she couldn’t  _ feel _ anything. Toriel didn’t feel like herself at all, she only took in the simulations from these recreated constructs. She wasn’t  _ really  _ in these places so it made sense that her magic wouldn’t be here either.  _ As if it would help any of them, as if she was ALLOWED to help herself…  _

Looks like she got to fumble around in the dark some more, joy. It wouldn’t be too bad here, she had been in this place long enough to recall how it was put together. From where she had been observing; the front door should have been right in front of her, she would just have to get around the table the two humans had been sitting at. She took her next steps very slowly and with great caution, arms out and claws feeling around for things to bump into. 

“Where…”

Toriel took more than enough steps to bump into the table, even to reach the  _ door _ but she couldn’t find anything. This was a relatively  _ puny  _ abode so she should’ve been able to reach wall or even  _ ceiling _ from anywhere she’d reach… but no. There was no way she was in the same place anymore, she had been walking blindly for  _ way  _ too long to even match the architecture of any sane building. 

“ _ What,  _ where  **_am_ ** I????” 

The floor actually changed, she could feel it. Before, she was treading upon the cheapest and scratchiest of berber. Now, it felt like she was walking on wood. She could wander aimlessly, she could even run, Toriel could launch into a full  _ sprint  _ and she would never come into contact with anything. All she could have been doing was losing herself into this minimalistic maze further and further without having the slightest idea of doing so. Of course, it  _ had  _ to be something else: there just  _ HAD  _ to be a catch. There was  _ always  _ a catch. Toriel always had to be subjected to something. Her audible thoughts felt the same way, but put out these facts with more frustration. 

“Does this  _ always  _ have to happen?! Enough is  _ enough  _ already with this-this  **_torment_ ** _!” _

She felt strange, a flurry of words and utterances she wasn’t familiar with flowed through her. Yet they still failed to properly convey how she really felt about all this, it just made her feel more and more  _ fed up.  _ Toriel felt like she was going to burst, she got so  _ angry  _ all of a sudden. With the anger came her own subliminal slideshow of what happened the last time she had gotten so mad, it made her feel even worse:  _ so much  _ that-

“ **_DAMMIT!”_ **

It slipped out of her, she couldn’t help it. Toriel couldn’t help the guttural growl that came out of her next, or the rather  _ Valkyrian  _ swing of her arm propelled by the bubbling fury rising to her top…  _ She never expected her fist to actually  _ **_HIT_ ** _ anything, let alone go right through a wall.  _

Suddenly Toriel could see her arm protruding through a  **hole** in the darkness, illuminated by this red light that seeped from it. All of that anger had tripped up with her and lost all of its momentum. She was right back to being utterly confused, still without the right words to express it. 

“W-wh-wha.  _ What?” _

She was able to feel around the fissure she created. She could see and feel that there was something behind it, that there  _ was _ something. This endless and open labyrinth wasn’t endless after all, Toriel would have to accept sooner or later that nothing could ever be what it seemed here. All the wandering into nothing, and she hadn’t gotten anywhere. This was all just a cover of where she actually was, an illusion. She would have never been the wiser being devoid of any sensation. That outburst of hers though, Toriel felt  _ something  _ briefly flare up inside of her before feeling the wall give way to her fist. It wasn’t even intentional  _ but it felt so damn good.  _

She was able to further tear away at the hole. It tried to  _ resist  _ her but a little bit of  **_force_ ** and suddenly the entire shroud dissolved just like that! Gone was the nothingness and here was…

“My house  _ again?? _ ”

That’s what it looked like; Toriel found herself standing before the intimidating basement stairs of…

“Or is it  _ his  _ home?...”

She couldn’t tell actually whereas she’d rely on the color palette to distinguish the identical dwellings, this one was neither her warm association of colors nor the colorless halls of ‘New Home’. It was red,  _ very  _ red. Everything was red, red floors and walls and furniture soaking in an ominous and ubiquitous red glare.

**RED RED RED RED RED** **_RED_ **

**_ȳ̵̡̢̡̤͉̗̹͉̜̺̳̯̤͈̭̘̪̼̭̯̜̦̰̱͕̞̰̖̗̪̜̝̼͍̟͔͉̗̤̹̞͔̂̑̇̎̏́̃̋̈́̉͛͌̔͘̕͘̕̚ơ̷̢̢̩̩̠̖͈̣̠̦͉͓̪͙̲̤̦̮͔̗̦̬̦̱̪̤̘͍̤͕͎̎͐̓̓̓͊̿̈̄̀̈̾͛͛̆͊̅̂͂̉́͆̑̔̑͒͋͂̄̃͆̋͒͂̆̉̾̿̉̋͆̌͌̄̀̒̈́̃̚͘̚̕͜͜͠͝ū̸̢̡̡̡̢̧̥͈̥̪̥̪͈̝̮̱̹͕̤͙͙̙̖͓̘̥͉̦͕̘͍̙̰͓͇͇̪̗̩̩̝̳̟̟͆̋́̐͊͗̿͋̒̿̍̄͒͊͑̾̓͂͌̃̅͗̎̆̏͊̑̎̽̆̑͊̿̕̕͜͜͝͝͝ͅ'̵̢̱͎̫͐̉̒̈̒̔̉̏̇̀͐͆̆̽͑͆̄́̈́͐̅̐͊̓̌̅̐̈́̚͘͘͝͝r̵̡̡̨̢̡̧̢͚͓͎̲̠̗͉͎͓͖̰̼͕̞̲̣͇̩̲̯̪̒͑͂̃e̷̡̨̛̪̥͇̱̲͙̻͚̜̦͔̦͓̯̙̖̺͙̹̭͓͍̗̮̟̒̏͛͊̉̀̈́͂̉̔̌̈̓͐́̏̿̾̂͑̍͗͊̇̂̍̌͋͗̄̊̀͂̆͂̋͛̏͆̾̔͑͛͊͗̓͐̈́͊̓̕̚̚͘̚͜͝͝͝͝͝͝͠ ̷̨̧̨̨̛̜̥̱̣͈͕̼̩̘̟̫͙̰̦̙̙̻̹̟̌͑͋͋̇̉̉̅̉̓̾̇̄͛͗̄̈̽͗͋̇̏̋̚͠t̵̢̧̛̛̗̗̫̟̫̐̂̇͂͌̈͆̅͗͂͜͠r̴̡̛͔̘̻̬͎̈́̈́͗̎̊͛̋͗͊̌͋̄̂̓̇͌̂͒̏́͗̇̅́͒̌̌̈̒̑̄́̓̍͂̓̒̋̾͊̚͝͝͝e̴̛̛͉̦̰͉̺̗̼͖͕̳̘̰̬̹͉̟͙̹͈̥̘͔̯̞̍͑̈́͆͗̋̀̇̏͒͐̓̿́̋̐̍͐̏͊̿̌̑͋̌̽̑̈́̈́̾̎͊̿͗̏̏̉̑͐͐͂̇̄̚͘͘̕͘͠͠͝͠ş̴̨̢̢̛̫̭͖̘̯̪͎͇̟͕̲̱͉̜̩͎͖͙̥̼̤͖̟͍̱̹̺̬̬̜͈̥̝̼̱̜̜̳̇̎̇́̃̉̆̒͆͋̄̇̄͂̈́́̍̃̕̚̕͜͜͠͝ş̶̢̫͎̝̳̟͇̩̗̲̼̼̜̳̖̠̳̣̹̺̞̠̖͚̰̼̣̗̳̱͎͎͖̞͕͔͖̫̩͚̩͇̳̙̳͉̥͈͍̘͖̮̹̫̭͔͇̹͕͚̪͇̭͋̔͗̓̈́̃̈́̐̽̋͗̋̅̌́̇͆̄̾̎͂̎̈͗͆͋̏͊̿̉͂̇̓̐̈́̀͘͝͠͠p̷̡̧̡̪̭͙̠̦̳̣͙͕̺͕̱̫̖̟̖͔͓̘̭̫̤̝͈͖̗̻̥̫̜̭̪͚̗͕̰̼̥̞̼̠̟͕̟̺̯̮̭̦͈͚͕̹̤̞͔̭̞͙͙̜̌̈́̍̆̐̿̽̊̐̏͛̇̈̐̆͒̃̐̔̍̈́̎̕͜͝͝ͅa̴̧̢̢̢̧̡̧̧̨̨̖͍̟͉̼̼͓̩͚̩͔̱̗͍̦͕̯͔̘̳͔̙͚̻͈̰͖͚̼͉̗̲͇̲̦͈̲̗̭̿̽̅͆̏̑͑̅͛͗̏̂̿̅̐̿̃̎̾̇̽͐̾̄͗͐̆̊̀̈́̕̕͜͜͠͝͝͝ͅͅͅs̶̢̡̧̨̢̛̼͉͎̣͈̯̲͉̫̖̘͇̜̫̥͖͕̤͈̬͙̯͎͍͇̼̳͇͉̙̘͈͍̼̮̰̝̳͈̏̀͂̈́̅̐̿̈̌͐̇̅̆͋̍͛͆̂̚̚͜͝͝ͅs̶̢̢̛̛͚̹̥̺̪̳̗̰̞̹̯̰̦̲̓̈͒͂̓̔̔̉͋̂̃͐͆̈̑̃̂̎̀̀̅̽͋̃̾͗̈͂̒͒̉̿̅̈̆̅̉̉͐̍̊̅̉̇̈́͗̉̈̓̓̽͐̇̈́̕̚̕̚͝i̸̟̣̗̭̱̮̯̜͍̲̫̰͉͕̥͇͕̫̦̪͖͔̯̼͉̱̤͒̓ͅṇ̷̡̨̧̪̟̣̫̘͔͍̠̜̯̪͖̼͙̜͚͍͚͙̺̼͖̺̯̤͎͓̤͉̗͔̹̜̮͎̫̮̙̠͙̆̓̔̕͜͜ģ̷̨̧̨̢̡̺̫̯͖̩̪͉̩͕͈̗̱͍̫͚͕͇͉̫͙̝̺̩͙͈̥̖̭͉̙̪͍̣̩̙͕̥͍̬̺̗̪͖̜̦̭͇͓̙͖̠̏͋͂̓͑̆͊͆̈̈̒͂̿͜͜͜͜͜͠͠ͅͅ_ **

  
  
  


[This is Not Toriel's Home](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NPrruyEmu0)

  
  


The cocktail of bad feelings was back, it slithered itself back int o her and clung to where it couldn’t be removed. She was  _ being  _ watched… There was no doubting this anymore, it never went away and even now it persisted. Toriel would be forced to fear the shadows and crevices she couldn’t see in this place, fear what could have been watching her from them. She felt so  _ unwelcome  _ here that chills found their way back to her. 

_ My head, it hurts…  _

She knew she had medicine for that in the kitchen, she just had to get to there before she couldn’t walk anymore. It wasn’t that far away though, see?: Toriel had just passed her room and the one under renovations as well, she walked by the unoccupied guest room and the basement stairs were waiting for her. It wouldn’t be too much longer until she made it: she just had to get to there before she couldn’t walk anymore. It wasn’t that far away though, see?: Toriel had just passed her room and the one under renovations as well, she walked by the unoccupied guest room and the basement stairs were waiting for her. It wouldn’t be too much longer until she made it: she just had to get there before she couldn’t walk anymore. It wasn’t that far away though, see?: Toriel had just passed her room and Asgore’s as well, she walked by the occupied guest room and the basement stairs were waiting for her. It wouldn’t be too much longer until she made it: she just had to get out before she couldn’t walk anymore. It wasn’t that far away though, see?: Toriel had just passed the room and the room as well, she walked by the room and the room was waiting for her. It wouldn’t be too much longer until she made it, but there was something uneasily familiar about this place: the rooms all looked like cells in a prison. 

“Wait.I’ve seen this place before…” 

Toriel hadn’t even started walking when she noticed the front of her home. There were bars in the doorway and windows. Through the bars though, she could see a whole row of cells similar to hers, a corridor lined with them on either side. She couldn’t shake this overwhelming sense that she had been here before…  **_Because she HAD been here before, she had just been on the other side of these bars._ ** Toriel remembered this place, she had come here when she absorbed the soul and couldn’t discern why it did this… but now it was almost screaming at her. She hadn’t trapped Brainz’s soul inside of her, she was trapped inside of  _ it.  _ That’s what this ‘prison’ was for, she remembered the crying child all the way at the end of this place. Toriel even remembered what happened when she tried to  _ reach  _ them… 

Well, it wasn’t like she would be  _ able _ to because she was trapped inside of this evil looking home. She didn’t panic though and even had a thought. If the front exit led to the cell block again; where would the basement lead? Even though Toriel had no desire to go deeper into this place, it wasn’t like she had any other options to consider: ‘out’ was still out and anything was better than having to spend another minute in this place. She took to the stairs and quickly descended them, the sadistic red glare followed her even down here. Toriel didn’t get much time to discern if this passage was really how she remembered it because she only had to take a couple of steps before running smack into a dead end. 

The door had moved much closer to the stairs… but it wasn’t the right kind of door. This was no more than an ordinary wooden door straight from someone’s house. What wasn’t ordinary about it was the excessive amount of chains and similar bindings keeping it shut, they were the only things redder than the rest of the deformed house. Toriel could only squint at it, preoccupied by a strong suited thought that lit up at the sight of the sealed portal:  _ hadn’t she seen this door before? With its gratuitous RED bindings laid across it.  _ Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t: Toriel couldn’t convince herself of either option. The door itself, she could’ve sworn it looked different. Whatever the case was, someone obviously didn’t want her going this way and that’s exactly what she wasn’t going to do. Back upstairs and into the gazes of the many unseen demons and horrors that existed everywhere you weren’t looking. 

What was Toriel to do  _ now?  _ She was back to being utterly trapped and maybe even helpless, at this point: she felt she would rather prefer being trapped in the sheer nothingness or even the depressing apartment. At least  _ there,  _ she had Byran to watch over. Toriel looked around the cursed dwelling for a hint or lead, she had to question what she would expect to find of value in her living room or bedroom… But it turned out that those places actually didn’t exist here. When she looked down both directions of her hallway, she only found that they stretched on forever. She didn’t recall either of her identical houses having  _ that  _ feature nor could she remember having so many  **_doors_ ** in them either. 

She couldn’t feel the overall fear that saturated this place as the sheer awe took over. There so many  _ doors!  _ There must have been a hundred doors put into this place, and these were just the ones she could  _ see _ at a glance. Why were there so many doors? When would either she or Asore ever put  _ this  _ many doors in? As a matter of fact, these doors didn’t even belong to the house! When Toriel took a closer look at some of them, they were all  _ different.  _ Different kinds of doors in different shapes and sizes with different kinds of knobs and locks on them, no two were alike. Toriel was almost hypnotized by them, she thoughtlessly plodded down one of the red corridors: gazing at all of the freak doors.

Such a bizarre collection: there were wooden doors, rusted metal doors, ones that were boarded up with rotting wood, ones with many locks and deadbolts screwed to them, one of them was a set of two that belonged to an elevator, and one of them was obstructed by a web of tape that had ‘ **POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS’** written all over it. One of them though, made Toriel stop where she stood, it earned her attention above all of the others. It was an unremarkable white wooden door with glass panes on the upper half of it. Being true, it wasn’t so much the door itself that Toriel noticed but what she could actually see behind the glass and curtains it held. 

_ Trees,  _ grass, a blue sky with fluffy white clouds…  **_Outside._ ** Could it really be?? Toriel had to know, she couldn’t stop herself from turning the tarnished doorknob. The door  _ opened  _ and in came a cool breeze that Toriel could feel running through her fur, she could smell  _ rain.  _ This place was so serene, so  _ vivid. _ With no other rational means to  _ leave,  _ Toriel made a quick decision that was almost impulsive… She stepped forward onto the brick porch and shut the door behind her… 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. 03

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1̴0̷-̸5̸7̸!̵ ̶S̵h̷o̸t̸s̸ ̵f̴i̶r̴e̷d̷!̸ ̵S̴h̷o̷t̶s̴ ̸f̷i̴r̸e̶d̷!̴  
> 1̴1̶-̶4̷1̶:̸ ̶W̴e̶ ̷g̵o̸t̶ ̷a̸ ̵1̷0̵-̷5̷3̴ ̶h̵e̶r̷e̶,̸ ̷b̴o̴t̷h̷s̷ ̸p̶e̴r̸p̴s̷ ̸h̴a̸v̶e̴ ̶b̴e̵e̴n̴ ̴n̶e̷u̷t̴r̸a̶l̷i̶z̷e̴d̴.̷  
> ̵W̵e̶'̷v̶e̸ ̸g̴o̸t̶ ̶a̸n̷ ̴o̵f̶f̵i̴c̸e̶r̶ ̵w̶o̴u̷n̷d̵e̴d̸ ̴a̸n̸d̴ ̵a̶ ̵c̶h̵i̵l̶d̴ ̶i̷n̶ ̴c̴r̵i̴t̴i̵c̴a̸l̸ ̷c̴o̶n̶d̸i̸t̸i̸o̸n̵.̸  
> ̸1̴0̶-̶5̸2̷,̵ ̴d̷i̶s̴p̵a̸t̸c̴h̶

It was such a nice day outside. The air was cool, the breeze was soft and filled with the subtle songs of birds perched on nature’s structures. Toriel could almost lose herself into this peaceful existence, tempted more by the lounge chairs sitting around the shaded patio. Any monster would give nearly everything just to experience this for ten minutes. For Toriel though… she was more focused on figuring out what and why about this place.

Toriel tore herself away from the forbidden portrait of the surface before her and turned around for a moment at the door she emerged from. Gone was the hostile red hallway of doors behind the glass, instead there was a dining room that looked familiar. Well maybe not _too_ familiar, if it was covered in garbage then it’d look a lot more faithful to what Toriel remembered about this place. It didn’t really seem all that salient at the moment though, Toriel couldn’t see or hear anybody within the house. 

She did hear a group of gunshots blaring in the distance further behind the house, the sounds of the miniature explosions echoing from deeper within the woods. Toriel felt her insides becoming very tight.

“Ohhhh stars, that can _not_ be good…”

She had nothing to do but investigate the sounds, pending another horrific discovery. Toriel followed a manmade clearing in the brush, a path headed directly towards the source of the noise. She became numb to the tranquility of being outside, additional gunshots only further made the beauty of the surface irrelevant to her. As Toriel drew nearer, she was already experiencing grim thoughts, ‘ _Who am I going to find dead?’,_ she couldn’t help it: she had been conditioned to violence and death recently. Very seldomly were her thoughts completely devoid of death, doom, and gloom after everything that had transpired in her life. What was the scenario in the end when Toriel finally reached it now?

Two people, a man and a small child. Toriel identified Baitren right away from his rolled up sleeve, the child though?

“Byran…” 

He looked pretty similar as an adult: _the adult in the memory of course…_ Brainz was something else. Byran though, was out here with his father. He was standing on top of a log to come closer to Baitren’s height and they were both sitting behind a table. What were they doing?

Suddenly, Toriel could see Byran outstretching his skinny little arms… **He had a gun in his hands.** But wait, this wasn’t just _any_ gun. Toriel recognized it immediately, this was the same gun she had taken from Brainz at the very beginning. 

**_“-The same ‘something’ that was clutched in his bleeding hand once upon a time. It had a name... proudly etched onto the side of its hide._ **

**_‘COLT COMMANDER .45’ .”_ **

She couldn’t explain how she remembered such a small detail… she just _knew._

Young Byran held the weapon out and aimed it at a wall of targets backed by sandbangs. He fired three times before placing the weapon on the table. Toriel would see that there were more weapons and ammunition on the flat top as well. 

Baitren finally spoke as the shots finished echoing. 

“Excellent. Good grouping, good shots. I’d say you’re about done with this piece… _Now,_ let's move onto this one.” 

“What? Do we _hav’ta?_ We been out here since _fii-vee,_ my arms hurt! You said we would be done after the pistolll.”

This was the first time Toriel had heard what Byran sounded like as a child, he sounded so much different. While he didn’t sound too happy right now, it was more of a childlike whining that sat in his tone rather than the subtle signs of brooding depression Toriel knew him for. 

Baitren only asserted himself. 

“I **_*said*_ ** we were done for the day when we _finished_ here. You got _one more_ exercise to do and I don’t wanna hear you complain about it. Now let’s get it over with.” 

“O- _kaay._ Yes, sir.”

Byran drooped his little head for a moment and sighed. Baitren leaned over and began grabbing strange shapes from the table and handing them to his son. 

“Before we start: What am I handing you?” 

“Charging handle… Bolt carrier… Butt-stock… Uhh. _Upper-Receiver_ !... Clip- _nonono!_ **Magazine!** Magazine…”

  
  


Baitren paused, withholding the part in question in his grip.

“ _Why._ Why did you change your mind?”

Byran cringed a bit, making a selection of unsure sounds while he tried to think. Baitren wouldn’t relent on what he was asking.

“ _Come on._ Tell me. You know why. Come on.”

The young boy rushed the answer out from the pressure. There was a hint of panic in his tone. 

“ _Because!-_ A clip is. What _is_ used to load the magazine. _Aand!_ The magazine is what puts the bullets into the chamber! Of the gun! And it either comes off or is made into the gun!”

Byran finished. Toriel could see the sweat starting to bead up on his head. Baitren went a short while without saying anything, just holding the ‘magazine’ and glaring into Byran’s face. Suddenly, he relaxed his gaze and finished handing over the part.

“Good.-”

Byran basically deflated with relief.

“-Now assemble your weapon, load it, and put six rounds into the red part of every target.”

Toriel would notice that all the targets were silhouettes of humans and the ‘red parts’ were heart shaped and placed in the appropriate spot of what they represented. Byran seemed daunted by this request, he hadn’t even started with the first part of it.

“Even the really _far_ one?”

“ _Especially_ the far one… You think this is hard now, just wait till we get to _moving_ targets. Now let’s go: you got thirty in the magazine and I’m giving you one spare if you make mistakes.”

Byran sighed again and started fidgeting with the gun pieces.

“Yes, _sir…_ ” 

He ended up with an M16 that he could barely hold let alone fire it without great difficulty. Toriel wouldn’t get to see how he fared here though. The first shot rang out and suddenly Toriel was staring out the door once more inside of the overwhelmingly red home. 

* * *

She should’ve figured this wasn’t actually ‘out’, more so another memory to playback. This one was quite different from the ones she had experienced already. For starters she could actually _move_ around while it was happening before her, Toriel had absolutely no effect on anything though but it was better than being forced into a single perspective. She was able to pick up details on her own volition: In this case, Byran’s face was still pristine without the scarring or the red eye. Speaking of volition, it seemed every one of these seemingly infinite doors were just different memories, Toriel would be able to pick which one to explore… minus the the basement door but that had to have been sealed for a reason, right? She wouldn’t spend too much time in choosing the next door to take, Toriel wanted to be away from this place as soon as possible even if it was only for a minute or two. She ended up picking another ‘ordinary’ looking door, it looked identical to the one in the basement without all of the locks and such. She opened it hoping to find some relation or explanation, she found herself in the middle of something more traumatizing. 

* * *

“-I got EVERYTHING you’ve ever known by my OWN volition and my OWN two hands! You think I lived to come home from Nam by wrapping myself around someone else’s leg? **_NO!”_ **

Toriel wasn’t expecting to walk into this, Baitren’s strong and commanding voice caused her to jump. Coming into realization with what was happening only made the anxiety skyrocket for her. By all means she had seen him angry before but never at Byran… 

He was still so small. The kid was stuck where he was standing in the familiar living room with tears rolling down his cheeks. He was trembling while his father continued to fiercely yell at him. 

“What do you think I did when I lost my arm?! I _CRAWLED_ out of there with nothing but my own life spilling from below my shoulder! **_I_ ** saved myself! If I relied on ANY of my squadmates I woulda DIED right with em! And that’s another thing! I’m going to be dead one day, Byran. **_DEAD!!!_ ** Who’re you going to rely on THEN? Your **_MOTHER???”_ **

The sarcasm was so heavy that it could be felt even with the man literally breaking his voice from how loud he was yelling. He paced and stomped around the room and threw his one arm all around. 

Byran on the other hand… could barely catch a breath, he was choking on his own sobs. He desperately shuffled himself towards the man who made him cry, holding his arms out for a hug. 

“Bu-b-bbb-bbut _D-daadDDd-EEEee..”_

Baitren… never had a more disgusted face been made when he saw this. He took a very hard step back and aggressively swiped at his son, hitting nothing but ultimately denying him comfort. 

**“** **_Don-chu_ ** come up on me! And _what have I_ told you again and **_AGAIN!!_ ** It’s ‘ **_SIR’_ ** **_!!!_ ** _You title me as SIR!_ That’s PATHETIC! I didn’t teach you to be _weak!_ What you’re doing there, that’s called _weakness!_ People outside, they _LOOK_ for helpless bugs like you to STEP ON, they go after you because you’re **_VULL-NER-A-BULL!”_ **

  
  
  


Then, it was like Baitren finally noticed the tears or the wailing in his son. He didn’t relent because of them, he only grew more furious.

“...WHAT? Are you gonna _CRY_ for your **_‘DADDY?’_ ** is that what you’re gonna _DO?!_ You’re gonna sit there and _CRY_ in the real world for your **_‘DAAD?’_ ** _”_

He marched right past his wailing kid and up to a big window covered up by heavy curtains. He wasn’t happy seeing Byran burying his red face into his soaked sleeves.

“Look here. _Look at me,_ Byran!” 

He got the attention he wanted and began pointing at the unseen world behind the glass with such intent, more than that: **contempt.**

“You see out there? You wanna know how it _works_ out there? It’s survival of the _fittest._ The weak _die_ and the strong pick through them like **_vultures!_ ** You show weakness out there and you’re _dead!_ You rely on ANYbody out there and you’re _DEAD!_ You’ll be stabbed in the back by the very asshole you put your faith in.”

Then he pointed to himself with just the same capacity. 

“And look at _ME!_ I put my trust in the government and just _LOOK_ what they did to me- to _everyone_ here! I _learned_ my lesson like I want _you_ to, but I had to learn it the HARD way. I relied on them and they _fucked_ me! I got nothing in return! Nothing but a family to provide for and a STUMP for an arm!”

There was a reprieve in words between them. Both seemed like they needed to calm down a little. Byran wasn’t so audibly sobbing and quivering as he was sniffing and staring at his father. Baitren lowered his voice entirely and crouched down next to him. 

“Look. I’m doing this because I don’t want this to happen to you. I don’t want you to be like me, I want you to be _faster,_ I want you to be _stronger,_ I want you to be **smarter.** **_I._ **Want you. To be better. To be better than me, to have everything I’ve learned without the shitty mistakes taking a bite out of your life…”

Every point he made, he solidified them by shaking his fist. Pounding them into Byran’s head. There was a point Baitren had a hint of sorrow to his voice, but that quickly went as his fury started up again. He stood up.

“And that _means._ You gotta go out there and trust **_NO-ONE,_ ** you hear me? **_Nobody._ ** Not a single soul other than _me,_ your sister, and your mother. **_Yes,_ **I’m telling you to deal with her and I don’t wanna hear it. But other than us? That’s it, nobody else. You go outside and it’s ‘Dog eat dog’ you know what that means?-”

His face deformed into a sullen scowl and it put so much flexibility into the next words Baitren would utter. 

“- **It’s kill or** **_BE_ ** **killed.** The only way you’re gonna survive is if you’re _BETTER._ Better than _me_ , better than _them._ I survived because I was _better_ than those slit eyed commie fucks. And _you?_ You gotta be even better. If someone ever hurls anything at you, you throw something right back at em, _twice_ as big and twice as _hard!-”_

And he was back to fluttering around the room wildly, the power in his words seemingly hypnotized Byran who couldn’t take his eyes off of his father. His _father_ was ramping up again, getting angrier and louder… but not specifically at him.

“-They trespass on you, you _burn their house down!_ They hit you, you hit them **_HARDER!_ ** They try to cut you _down,_ you cut them **_DEEPER!_ ** And _GOD_ forbid they get on their knees and beg and _PLEAD_ for you to spare their _WORTHLESS_ lives: _remember_ how it works. The _weak_ die, the _strong_ survive! **KILL. OR. BE. KILLED!** You will _NOT_ stop! You will _NOT_ show them mercy! You do that and they’ve _ALLLLREADY_ gotchu! You gotta be _driven._ You gotta be **_determined!_ ** You gotta be _RUTHLESS!_ You gotta be ready to go for the _THROAT!_ RIP THEIR HEART OUT! BREAK _EVERY_ BONE IN THEIR **_BODY!_ ** _THEY’RE_ the ones who will fall first! Not **_you!_ **YOU will not be ALLOWED to die until there’s NOBODY left!”

The room quieted, bar from Baitren’s forceful breaths and Byran’s straggling sniffles. Baitren brought himself back to a semi calm state, at least to his inside voice. 

“Now-”

His head whipped to Byran.

“- none of this. Can happen. Everything I’ve taught you, everything I’ve yet to teach you. All my skills passed on to you. They’ll all be for nothing if your first move to any challenge is to sit down and cry. I know you don’t wanna let me _down_ , right?”

Byran just briskly shook his head while trying to dry his sore face.

Baitren shook his head too.

“Of _course_ you don’t. You wouldn’t play out your old man like that. _So,_ the most important thing I’m gonna teach ya now is that _cryin?_ Has no place here. It’s something you gotta **_starve_ ** out and let it crumple up inside of you into dust. All it does is makes you sloppy, it shows _weakness_ to your enemies and like I said: you don’t wanna give em _one_ inch over you. We’re the ones taking everything from them, not the other way around.”

Everything was starting to become unfocused, the memory was decaying. The last thing Toriel would be able to see was that Baitren stood up straight, all _authoritative-like._ He did this and from his belt, he pulled out a large black knife with teeth on it. 

“If you’re gonna be _my_ man, my soldier. You’re going to stand up straight and you’re going to stop your babying. You want this knife, right? You’ll get it one day when you _earn_ it and you’ve still got a _long_ ways to go, and we’re gonna get _right back to it right NOW._ I’m going to give you to the count of **ten** to get yourself together…

… **_ONE.”_ **

The room deconstructed itself, its very fabrics were no more than shadows dissolving into nothing. Byran was unseen but his father still existed… so did the knife brandished in his grip.

**“TWO…** **_THREE.”_ **

He soon faded away, but the knife remained perfectly lucid. It even had a glow to it, it was hypnotizing and drew Toriel closer to it. 

“ **_FOUUR- FIVE!_ ** Your time’s halfway up! C’mon Byran! Your _BETTER_ than this! Get up!”

She didn’t know why… she didn’t know what would happen. Toriel, in her trancelike state touched the sharp steel of the tool. She could **_feel_ **its cold skin coming into contact with her claw. 

**_“_ ** **_SIX!!!_ ** **_You’re at_ ** **_SIX!!_ ** **_GODDAMNED, FUCKING_ ** **_SIX!!!!”_ **

* * *

**Nothing… back to oblivion.**

Toriel would be left in the encapsulated space between lucidities. But another recognizable voice soon called out from everywhere yet nowhere. 

* * *

  
  


“-I got up to six before I gagged my tear ducts. You shoulda seen him, I stomped up to my feet with my chin up and as _loud_ as I could, ‘ **_Yes sir!’_ **He was so proud of me.” 

Odd, it was definitely Byran, but the traits of age dampened his voice once more… he sounded even older than he did in his apartment, a little bit closer to _Brainz_ actually. But who was he talking to now? Toriel couldn’t _see_ anything, it was like hearing him from a phone speaker. 

“No, I don’t think he was too hard on me at all. Everything he told me there was straight to grave **_truth,_ **bordering the meaning of life itself.”

He spoke these words like a rebuttal to a sentence or a question Toriel couldn’t hear. Everytime Byran’s alleged other company would ‘speak’, it was like radio static blasting in and drowning everything out.

“He put me through absolute hell, but that’s not the point. Unlike **_‘HER’_ ** **.** He did it to help me, he did it because he wanted me to survive and be successful. He _had_ to do it and you know it very well, we wouldn’t _be_ here if he didn’t open my eyes when he did.”

**“[̵R̸E̶D̶A̴C̷T̸E̷D̷]̴”**

“I _doubt_ the average joe makes a living off of stealing military grade equipment from the government and selling it to civilians. If they did, I don’t think business would have been so damn good for my father or me.” 

**[̵̥̆̎̈́̅͜R̶̥̫̖͎͚͍̞̙̣̺̄̅̅̆̆́̕͠E̸̢̪͉̍Ḋ̶̨̛͕̱͓͉̱̲̟͓̹̆͊̈̅̈́̓̃͗̂̓͝Ä̵̢̬͎̮̜͈̬̝́̏C̶͚̯̦̖̽͆̈͗̈́̋̉͂̒͑̌̾T̷͕̬͉͗E̶̫̳̼̩̫̬̤̬͚̳̟͉̞͚̍̂̿̅͛̍̊̈̽̅̓D̴̢̛̖̪̲̬̺̞̟̟̓̎̐̒̓̈́͋]̸̡̪̝͖͍̼̫͍̯̊̐͗͛͛͘͠͠ [̸̣͒̓͒͛̕Ȑ̷̻̭̂͜͜E̸̩͙̍͒̊̕D̶̡̛̹̰͕̜̘͊A̷͎̥͎̝͌C̶͕͊̇͘͜T̸̠̺̊̈́Ḛ̸̢͕̘̎͋̽̊͜͝D̵̢̨͚͕̟͐̑]̸̱͒̊**

**[̷̧̡̜̱̫̏̀̓̍̓̄͗̽͊̕ͅͅR̴̨̦̼̘̱͓̻͇̝̬̺͖̱͙̳͂̏Ë̴̡̞͚̭̖̪̺̣͕̫̭̙̭͎̘̪́̏̂͐̅͌͒͆̂̊̏̋̑̐̔̕͘͝͝͝͝D̸̞̗̱͓͙̻͓̞̦̊̄͛̏͒̉̊̉͑̃̽A̷̢̯̮͎̥̞̟̜̼̠̩̭̯̗̅̉͐͋͆́̌̄͝ͅͅC̵̱͌́͆͌̀͆̈̈́̄̾͂͛͛̇̐̑͑̃̕ͅT̶̢̧̠̫̣̪̘̥̟̥̳̲̦̟̻̰̯̘̐̊Ȩ̴̨̭̖͉̤̤̰̜̤̼̺̩̼̠̮̟̻͍̪̘͒̓͐̈́̂̇̎̀̋̚͠D̸͐̂͗̐͌̋͛̓̈̅́̐͑̅͗̽̑̕̕͜]̷̧͖͕̪̰̠̺̹̞͓̩͉͉̪͉̬̥͈̭͋̈́̑̉̃̆̉̎̀̒̇̅̽̏̎͘̚͝ͅ**

  
  
  
  


“Yeah, well what was he _supposed_ to do, the government cheated him so he cheated right back. For that matter, the same applies to _me_. I ain’t been put through school and don’t gotta piece of freaking worthless paper that lets me get any job above menial labor.”

**[̵̱̗͓̱̳̳̻̘͓͚̩̖̱͇͂̂͊̎̀̈́̊͑̄̊͆̍̇̕R̴̨̯͖̗̒͋̈̏̏͐Ȩ̶̛̖̦̦̘̉̑̅͐̇̈́͐̂͗͒̆͂̏̚͝͝D̷̡̡̢̛̛̫̲̺͖͔̻̣͓͇̦̮̺̤͔̘̺͍͓̹̳͇̩̉̀͒́̒͛̊̽̎̈̐͘͝͝Ā̴͉͑͊͊̌͊͗̄͗͐̇̍̆̀̅̂͠͠͠͠͠C̶̡̨̹̫͉̦͚̞͙͔̠̞̗̱̙̥̬̞͕̺̻̖̝̾̍̈͗̃͋̿͆͋̓͂͌̉͒͆̊̑̈̌͂͛͋̚͠Ţ̴̛͈̞͚̬̼̹̳̜̩̭͈̻̩͆̈́̿̋́̾̎͊̍̐̓̉̑̑̑̔̒̕̕͜͝ͅȨ̸̬̦͕̞̞̍͒̑́̃̕D̶̨̡̢̢̡͓͎͎̮͍̬͓̼͇̳̖̞̰͙̥̻̬̞͖̘͂̾͛͊͗̊̎̆̋̓̓̌̌͂̎͆̚͠͝ͅ]̵̨̧̨̡̛̻̼̞͍̘̪̩̱̤̖̱͍̭̤̭͙͖̥͇̐̓̾̃̽̄̔̈́͗̇̋͘͘̚͠**

  
  
  


“That’s all that ‘school’ _is though!_ Everything that they drip feed and dilute to you, my father taught it to me in a _fraction_ of the time you’d waste rotting in there. For _free,_ too: I can read _five-_ hundred words per minute, I can do math up to hundreds and hundredths in my head on the spot, I can calculate trajectories and muzzle energy too, I can look at any firearm and tell you how to disassemble it and how every single part works, he told me _everything_ that I needed to know to get into his business. Not only to _survive,_ but to actually _live_ for once. _Sure,_ if you want to be _‘technical’_ my father was a criminal, _I’m_ a criminal: but only in the eyes of the same government that treats the very people who fight for our safety like disposable asswipes. But _I’m_ not the same as those assholes who steal from other hard working people or destroy livelihoods. I don’t take away from _anybody;_ those kind of people deserve to be hung from street lamps like fruits. All I’m doing is _giving…_ I’m giving people liberties that the government tried to yank away… They’d erase the second amendment from the constitution if they could.” 

  
  


[̴̡̨̨̫͚̦̠̤͉̠͈͈̺̥͈̟̗̝̬̥̲̊̃̅̄̓̏̈́͆͊̈̐͐͂̈́̆͐͒̊̓̈́̈́̅͊̈́͗̅̓̆͐̊̊̕͘̕͜͜͜͝R̸̡̢̧̧̨̢̢̛̯̰̬̥̜̗̰͍͕̹̗̳̗͇̬͔̖̹̰̗̘͈͖̞͓͉̤͕͉͉̬̬̱̖̈́̉̌̍͊̌̇͆̾̀̑̄̽͑̐́͌̈̄͐̂̈́͊̎̉͗̊̒͆̃͆̒̾̃̋͋̐̐̃̔͘͘͘͜͝͝͝E̵̢̡̘͇̠̰̺̖̣̟̝͇̣̠̝͔̖̤̥̖̺̭̟̳̹̼̅̐̅͜͝ͅD̶̢̧̡̻͔̞̩̮̤̫͎͚͓̗̲̪̺̲͙̣̻̰̻̪̱̻̳̪͚͖̙̯͓͈̝̪̟̺̮̘̰͎̥̝͚̣̩̼̘̑̿̊̄͆̀̃͊͌̔̈̉̊̈́̐̈̓͆̾̏̂̓̀̚̚͘͜͜͠͝͝ͅͅȂ̴̛̛̛͓̞̼͔̭̞̟̅͌͋̑͒́̍͗͒̊͌̎̓̓̈́̈́͂̍͘͝͝͝Ç̴̡̛̛̛̤̮̦̜̠͉͍̱̮̖͌̈́̂̌̅̍͐͊̀̑̄̓́̆̅̈́͐̊̀̆̃̎͗͛̀̓͂̀͗̓͆͑̀̇͂͘͘͘̚͜͝͝T̷̨͍̤͕̣̠̝̦̭̱̪̙̝̻̗̲̙̜̲̬̋̍̀̀̆̃͂͗͊́̎̓̈͂͑́̊͋͊̋͋͑̄͑͆͊̿̌́̀͆̍͛̊̀̅͋̔͋̒̇̋̕͘͝͠͝͝Ḝ̷̢̹͕͍̟̺̤̠̼̜͙̩͓̲͍͓̭̗̗̤̪͖̘̯̬̬͕̝̻̥͖̺̝͉̙̝͍̭̝̤̦̘̉͗̽̽̒̏̌̽͊̔͒́̃͗̏͗̓̓̉̂͐̋͌͑̃̒͆̔̌̏͘̕̕͜͜͝͝͠͝ͅD̵̨̢̨̧̧̧͍͔͍̮̫̪̜̺̬̦̦̹̤̗͍̪̮̺͍͙̤͓̝̘̰̬̱̟̱̺̣̦͚̈̄̑̏͋͑̓̇̒̉̔̈́̕͜͝͠͠ͅ]̷̢̨̢̧̧̧̮̦͚̙̥͉͍̳̞̬̜̰̥̦͓̪͓͍͔̟͕̠̣̬̲̋̈́̈́̇̈̂̿̑̅͝͝

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Of _course_ this is dangerous… I **_know._ ** You don’t think _I_ would know how much I have to _lose?_ The only reason we’re here is because both of us agreed that this was better. But that’s why we’re keeping this low and not branching out. The bigger this gets, the easier it’ll be for those dogs to _find_ it.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**[̸̡̩̜̻͔̜̱̹̮̯̣̗̪̝̫̥̯̠̝̲̼̬͔̼̲̤̜̪͔͔̫̝͔͔̑̇̾͋̎̆͒͗͊͆͋̿̽̏̾̉̈́̎̏̑̃͒͂́̈́̕͜͠ͅͅR̵̡͇̝͈̬͇̜̤͖̤̟̺̙̮̩̳͉̠̘͓̝̠̜͙̘̖̖̩̖͎̗͙̬͉͎̜̰̜̫̲͍̗͕̙̦̜͙̺͌͊̽͋̇͑̾̐͒̐͑̆̌́͌̔̆̓̈́̓̌̒̈́̓̋͐̒̆̾̑̄̔̏͛̚̕̕̚̕̕͜͜͜͝͝͠Ę̴̡̡̛̛̛͈͕̲̗͈̻̯̥͕̜͔̹̳̜̝̪̩̼̭̗̘̖̥̪̞̣͕̜̝͓͍̮̙̙̥͕̜͖͈̖̦̙͓͚͉͔̬̥̺̳̱̇̀͒̄̓̃̈́͆̋̃͆̀͐̏̂̈́̋̈́͛̈́̎̅͐͑̎̿̀͊̆̃̆͛͂̾̾̃́͐̇̐̆͐̔͋͗͛̑̒́̌͗̏̇̐͒̾͊̿̈́̑̕̕͘̕̚͘͜͝͠͝͝͝ͅͅḌ̸̨̢̡̡̢̢̧̛̬̳͇̻̜̰͕͎̳̙̠̺̫̱̭̮̹͉̻̞͇̟͖̺̯̥͖̙̱̬̹̭̬͇̰̌̈́̈͌͂̌̏̄̓̎̾̋̓̓̏́͑̉͊̔̔͒̒̌͂̌̾̒̿̐̆̿̓͘͘̕̚̕͝͝͝͝͝ͅ**

**A̵̛͓̥̤̮̻͓̲͉̞̰̼̟̱͙͍͙̓̂̽̆͒̅̈́̑̀͛̓̓̄̍͌͗̇̿̉͒̅͑̈͌̆̎̄̒̚͘͘͝͝͠͠ͅC̸̨̡̨̧̡̢̛̲̠͍̖̥̞̘̜͇̻̦͕̘̪̮͎̥̬̭̗̥̥̠̪͙̪̖̱̼͓̳̠͎̜͇̟̘͙̜̤̺̼̞̦̠͕̮̙̼̪̲̤̩͇͈̈́͛̅̅̔͂̾̊̈̓͋̂͌͂͊̽̐͛͊̉̌̔̆̏̄̌̈́̅̌̉̊͒͌̈́̓̆̉̔̐̃̆̔͒̚͜͜͝͝͝ͅŢ̶̧̡̜̼̫͈̱̩͖̲̮̼͙̪̺̙̝̯̟̤̪̱͉̙͕̞̘̗̩̼͇̳̞͇͕̱̳͔͑̅̄̎͒͋̌̒͒̊͂̍̅̊̽̉̓̍̌̿͊͆̎̃̐͛̈́̏̋͊̄̾̏̽̅͊̽͌͐̏̈́̽̋̈͑̑͗̀̕͝͝͠ͅͅͅE̶̡̪̙͇͓̮͈̻̹̗͚͉̟͊̆̎̍͗̋̿̽̉̈͑̏̋͌̄͌̾͒̊̈́̓̊̌̍̾̚͘͝͝Ḑ̵̨̨̡̨̟͚͚̗͉̘̝̩̱̦͈̥̟̩̱̯̹͎̭͓̗͓͎̫̦̜͖͕̘͉̩̟͖͕̥͔͈͌̋̅͂̐̃͒͗̾̌͛̏̏̎͒̔̏̍͂͆͂̈́̀̍̏͛͊͐͊̌̀̂̓̃̈̇̃̽̏͂͐̃̑͐͊͑͒̿̐̀̓̿̇̾̍̚͘͜͝͝͝͝ͅ]̵̼̠͇̪͚̆̍̒̐̿͑͒̔̑̄̉̀͌͐̅̌̈͗̿̆̑͒̌̾̽͒͑̓̊͒́͌͛̌͒͆̃̉̈́̀̾̉̃̌̍̆͂͛̊̃̇͌͛̆͛̚̚͝͝͝͠͝͠**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**“** **_NO._ ** That had _nothing_ to do with anything. My father was capable of running this thing _ten_ times bigger without ever being caught. Don’t you even think any of what happened was because of _him._ No no… what happened was _someone,_ ratted him out. Some castrated pusbag of a man brought the pigs on us. I never found out who, but I _know_ that’s how it went down: Baitren was too damn good at his job to let this happen. And even though it- to me- I don’t _blame_ him for- _nevermind…_ I don’t wanna talk about it anymore…”

[̵̛͉̞̞̤̬͎͔͙̲̫͕̬̪̈͑̈́̎͌͆͑̈́̏̏͝͠͝R̴̢̨̙̩̹͕͚̯̞̞͎͕̄̉̎͑̑̃͐͛̅̕E̸̡͚̦̠͍͚͇̥͍͛̿̅͂Ḍ̷͉͉̦͇͉͍͇͖̫̩̊̒̐̒̊͗̈̄̓͝͝͝Ã̷̟̮͓̯̣̖̬̯̆͛̇͠C̸̛͇̲̪͙͓̦̅͂͛̾͆͂̽̏̑͑͜͝T̸̜̻̬͉͔̜̖̳̩̓͆̆͗̇͆͌͗͛̇̕̕ͅE̷̡̨̫̺̻̬̞̘͍̝͐͐̈́̌͑̄͋̆̂̀̇̕̕͜ͅD̵̛̝̖̻̞̯͖̏͆̄̚͝]̶̛̩̦̠͂̎̐̍̓̐̃̂̌́̇͛̍

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

[̵̛͉̞̞̤̬͎͔͙̲̫͕̬̪̈͑̈́̎͌͆͑̈́̏̏͝͠͝R̴̢̨̙̩̹͕͚̯̞̞͎͕̄̉̎͑̑̃͐͛̅̕E̸̡͚̦̠͍͚͇̥͍͛̿̅͂Ḍ̷͉͉̦͇͉͍͇͖̫̩̊̒̐̒̊͗̈̄̓͝͝͝Ã̷̟̮͓̯̣̖̬̯̆͛̇͠C̸̛͇̲̪͙͓̦̅͂͛̾͆͂̽̏̑͑͜͝T̸̜̻̬͉͔̜̖̳̩̓͆̆͗̇͆͌͗͛̇̕̕ͅE̷̡̨̫̺̻̬̞̘͍̝͐͐̈́̌͑̄͋̆̂̀̇̕̕͜ͅD̵̛̝̖̻̞̯͖̏͆̄̚͝]̶̛̩̦̠͂̎̐̍̓̐̃̂̌́̇͛̍

“I don’t wanna talk about it…”

  
  


[̷̺̼̗͍̪̹̦̩̳̠̥̞̅͗̌̉̽̿͂̊̃͑͋̃̈́̊̈́̐͋̇͌̀̀̕͝͝R̵̡̡̨̢̛̪̠͙̳͕̘͉̖̲͚͉̬̩̞͍̤͈̯̼͍͍̞̖̱͈̳̰̮͕̫͙̰̮̺̹̜̾̃̉̅̐̿̀͛͗̈́͋̃̌̄̈́̃͂̐̐͛̋͐̋͑̅̅̇̎̒͋̂̈̌̐̄͐͘͘̚̚͝͠͠͝͝͝ͅͅE̸̟͌̏̽̿͌̃̎͛̓̑̓̋̔̿͒̉́̄̉͐̇̽͊̃̅̉̑̆̀̅̑͆̚͠͝͠͝D̵̢̡̛̛͍̹̘̱̭͔͑͋͊̈́̀̏̋̂Ą̷̨̨̛̖̝̲̫̙̘̗̖͓͈̦̮̬̜͉̼͈̼͖̤͔̣͚̩̼̝̜̯̪̗̬̠̓̑̐̉̐͋̽͊͊͂͒̈́͛͛̍̿̿̃̈̓̔̍̄̆̋̊̔̏̽́̈̈́͐́͑̊͗͆͘̚̕̕͘͜͜͜ͅͅÇ̸̢̢͔͚̜͎͚̲̳̹͓̮͈̫̱̞͉̝̝͇̤̥̻̤̘̪̲̳̖̥̩̮̲̝̗͕̜̼̘̩̝̾̅̾̌̊́͛̈͒̊̇̈̈̎̎̈́̈͊͒̐͑̅͑̉̿̋͆̐͐̽̌̂̒̍̕͘̕̕͜͜͝͠͝ͅT̵̲̰̭͖̬̥̬̤͍̪̬̓̄͋̎Ȩ̸̡̛̛͙͈͔͓͔̹͊̓͋̃̾͛̐́͗̍͊͛͂͋̓̅̍̓͑͛̊͐̇̀͒̈̉̇̓̓̅͋̀̂̚͘̕͝͝D̶̢̧̢͓̞̤̳̰͎̙̗̖̯̼̦̗̬͈̳̱͙̹̪̝̘͕̹̰̺͉̬̠̖̼̫͎̪̼̰̅̒̉̒͆͊̽̃̽̌̋̎̍̈́̽̎͋͆̑̿̈́̄̒̈̇̈́̄̊̈́͒͜]̵̛̣̖̬̩͎͕̟̖̺̅̆̽͐͌̏̌̈́́̊̑̋̔͌͌̿͆͑̍͐̈̃͗̄̅̕͝͝ͅ

**I̵̩̞̤̬̙͚̯̮̓̅̅̒̌̓͝ ̶̱̀̊̍̃̉̉̀̾̈́͊̅̀d̸͇̩͍̼̯̻̬̞̯̳̗̀̊̑̈́͜͠ơ̶͔̐̂̾̄̏̃͑̒̽̿̈́͝ṅ̵̨̩̝͉͔͍͑̒͌͊̆̎'̵̧̩̯̲̦̘̈͊͌͌̈̈́͛̿͗̚̕ṯ̴̨̟̙͕̩͚̤͍͌̊̈́̏ ̴͔̖̙̎̓́͝w̶̨͓̯͕̣͖͚̱̞̬͓͒͒̀̈́̆͝a̵̡̡̩̘͉̱͙̙͎̰̫͖̫̮̅̔̽̾̔̌̇͊̉͘͝n̸̖̩̕t̵̞̜͉̘͖̄̉̎̒͆̉̈͛ͅ ̵̙͎͓̐̃̐͗̓͛̃̃͐͌̇̓̾͠t̶̢̧̫̻͖͉͉͕͚̩͓̲͓̏͑͒̌́̈́̾͂̑̐͗͂ö̷͈̺̠͉̔̇ ̶̩̗͙̠̓̋̈̉̽͝͠t̷̛̛̳͚̭̙̞̻̒̆́̏̌͑̃̿̍͌̏͊ä̸̛̟́͌̔̓̀̌̐͝l̷̺͊͆͌̇͝k̸͓̪͎̺̝̈́̾ ̴̡͚̼̰̭̥̏̀̓͗̽̑̽̀̀̋̕͝a̷̡͙̗͓̝̯͈̯͐̃̔b̵̢̛̛̖̝̯͐̓̃̈́̐́̀̊̐̏ő̵̦̮̝̜̫̌̑̏̅̇̓̊͠ư̵̛̛͇̽̎̑̓̔͘͘t̴̻͎͕̟̣̫̮̦̖̲̟̓̍̈́̽̔̈́ͅ ̶̧̡͍̮͎̺̩̣̌̈́̎̂̀̀̅̽͘i̷̢̛̬͕̠͒̋̿̏͝t̸͈͛͗̂̆́̒̄͂̈́͑**

* * *

  
  


A flicker. A glimpse of something bright burst into existence with a harsh sound. It was so RED… 

  
  


**_I don’t want to talk about it…_ **

A broken image that strobed and lapsed. There were faces, they looked so mean and scary.

**_I don’t want to talk about it…_ **

The tempo increased, faster and faster did a flipbook of confusing and vague images and distorted cut off sounds fill the empty space. Were they memories or thoughts? Dreams or nightmares? It was too ambiguous and chaotic to make any kind of sense of this. They all tried so hard to exist but all were turned away before Toriel could truly comprehend anything. All because-

**I D o n’ t W a n t T o T a l k A b o u t I t . . .**

  
  
  


Toriel was just as quick feeling the comfy embrace of anxiety slither up her back as she was standing back inside of her red nightmare. Home sweet home, but it didn’t solely accommodate her for long. 

**_-*Klunk!*-_ **

She instantly shattered the metaphorical ice that held her still and jumped from the noise. It was hardly loud though and it was muffled too as if something had fallen onto the floor behind a closed door… There was no way she would be able to tell which door hid the sound, but she wouldn’t have to. The sound of _another_ impact caused her to flinch. This one was louder and so very clear, Toriel only had to search for five seconds when she found the source of _this_ noise and perhaps the original one as well.

In front of a quaint and _heavy_ looking metal door, a gigantic open padlock was laying on the floor. There would be nothing stopping her from opening it now. Except for the fact that it grew tired of her terrified hesitation and did so for her.

The rusted latch turned by itself. Toriel would see the door slowly swaying open as it lightly creaked. She waited but nobody came out because nobody _opened_ it and nobody was supposed to enter… except for her. As ominous as this was, Toriel would go against her inhibitions and eventually walk up to it: anything to escape the bad feelings in this damned place. They felt even worse than before, she felt like she could see _eyes_ staring at her from just outside her peripheral vision.

Toriel trepidatiously approached the door and took the dreadful peak around it and into the ‘room’ it wanted to show her. It wasn’t even _that,_ at least she couldn’t see as much. It was near pitch black inside, not a single hint of red could seep through the intimidating entrance. Completely dark… with the exception of the big television set sitting right in the middle of the room, partially lighting it up with the glow of the snow inside of the screen. The floor that she could see, it was covered in the thickest layer of _dust,_ except for one part right in front of the hissing screen. A black rectangle parted the dust all around it, it probably scattered it when it fell to the floor in here… it looked like a VHS tape of sorts. 

Toriel only figured that out as much because of the VHS _player_ she could see sitting below the TV inside of the cabinet it rested upon. She strongly dreaded taking the first step into the room with a newly felt anxiety afflicting her, she didn’t know what was going to happen when she crossed the doorframe. Nothing actually would happen, and she wasn’t sure if she liked that or not. She picked up the tape and brushed some of the dust from it, she couldn’t find a title or a label on it even after looking at it from every side in the light. Toriel also tried to find where it could’ve _fallen_ from, but she was also successful at it. It was like the setup and the tape were the only things that this room held, Toriel didn’t _dare_ step out of the light. 

Honestly, this wasn’t much of a puzzle or something to ponder about: Toriel would crouch down and slot the tape through the door in the cabinet and firmly press down the PLAY button. (It was the _only_ button on the machine). She stepped back and stared at the screen and… **nothing.** Nothing would happen, Toriel would end up strolling out of the room feeling disappointed from this minor anticlimactic series of events. The feeling would only live for six seconds when she realized that the red hallway of doors suddenly had a whole lot _less_ doors. It actually had _no_ doors in it anymore, not even the one she _just_ walked out from. The hallway too, there was an actual dead _end_ in one direction, Toriel would be forced to go in one direction towards… she really had no idea.

She soon came to the conclusion that this was _far_ worse than anything that freak room could’ve inflicted upon her: not only was she now _stuck_ in the red nightmare, but the horrid feelings that made it so terrible to begin with were even _stronger_ now. The amount of soul crushing DREAD she was just _drenched_ in was on par with some of the worst excesses she personally knew, **_but from the sound of things: it was about to get a whole lot worse._ **

  
  


She could hear what sounded like _screaming_ coming from far ahead, the most high pitched sounds of distress she had ever heard. Toriel actually felt like running towards them, eventually _sprinting_ down the hallway. She couldn’t figure out why she was doing this, Toriel was so confused and scared, but she just _had to._ Something was very wrong. Something was so terribly, terribly wrong that the RED was challenged. The walls, floors, and ceiling started to _flash:_ they would lose their brutal color for the briefest moment. They all strobed with the intrusion of BLUE combatting the RED. 

**_RED AND BlUE AND RED AND BLUE AND RED AND BLUE AND RED AND BLUE AND RED AND BLUE AND RED AND BLUE AND RED AND BLUE._ **

The screams were becoming louder too, their shrill calls had grown so large that they couldn’t be _one_ any longer and fractured into the countless sirens that boomed from behind the walls. They weren’t coming any longer because they were already _HERE._

**_“Rose, what’s going on? I’m scared!”_ **

**_-_ ** **“Quiet! We have to get to mom and dad!”**

A living room forced itself around Toriel, the flashing lights flooded the once dark room through the crack in the curtains. Baitren was there, looking out the window and so was Marge: standing shakily behind him in a nightgown. Baitren though… his face. It was the first time Toriel Byran had ever seen FEAR in it. 

“Fuck, fuck **_-_ ** Yeah, they’re coming for _us-_ **_FUCK!”_ **

He swiped the fabrics shut and spun around to his kids, he couldn’t withhold the terror bleeding into his words either: fumbling with his frantic words. Baitren bent over before the children.

“Rose, Byran. Listen to me. Go down into the basement right now, _DON’T_ turn on the lights. Get to the basement and don’t make a single noise. Sit there until my signal. When you hear it, go _out_ through the cellar doors and _RUN._ Do you hear me? Run for the trees and don’t stop until you can’t hear the sirens, GOT IT? Now _go. GO!”_

He didn’t take them there, he didn’t accompany them or give them another moment with him. Baitren bolted over to a cabinet sitting by the couch… He brought out two black handguns from inside of it. Marge almost fell over from her shock and from the force that her spouse thrust one of the guns into her chest, she finally gripped the thing and let Baitren pull its slide back for her. He cocked his gun with his chin. 

They could hear tires scraping to a stop and the sound of many metallic doors opening and closing from outside. Baitren corralled Marge behind him with his eyes affixed to their front door, he made one quick glance behind him just to make sure the kids were gone. His worst fears were still standing petrified in the same spot behind him, both of them. 

“What’re you still DOING HERE?! **_MOVE!”_ **

There was an army of footsteps and barking dogs coming right up to the door. The children were still statues from shock, no amount of yelling from their father could release them from their ensnarement. It wasn’t him that got them to move, their mother had come to terms with what was happening.

“ **_GET OUT OF HEEEERRRREE!!!”_ **

In her voice that was more shrill than all of the sirens, Marge had snapped the two young ones from their trance and sent them away towards the basement. 

Sweat poured from Baitren’s face as a terrified hint of relief came to it. He looked into Marge’s eyes and muttered to her.

“I love you, Margillia…” 

She didn’t answer him with words, Margillia merely pressed her lips into his before they both ran up to the strobing window. With one final nod to each other, the curtains were thrown open and they both engaged the police through the glass. The house boomed from the sound of the gunshots within it…

**Their attack was answered right away.** **_IMMEDIATELY_ ** **the window** **_shattered_ ** **from the immense hail of returned and automatic gunfire. A dozen muzzle flashes lit up the entire living from outside. Both parents lurched and jerked backwards, they collapsed onto the tile floor amidst the falling shards of glass and never moved again. They died without uttering a sound…**

The question of how Byran would know this down to the grimmest and bloodiest of horrible details despite being so far gone from the house never arose… **_Because he never left…_ **

Toriel would hear a sound over all of the commotion, a harrowing and soul rending noise that she would strongly not care to ever witness again. The horrified scream Byran made, seeing his parents die right before him… He was so _little._ They didn’t want him to watch… but he just wouldn’t leave his father. His sister tried to get him to stop, she tried to pull him to safety, but as he ran for his father sprawled onto the floor: she disappeared down the basement steps. 

“ **Dad!** **_DAD! PLEASE!_ ** **DAAD! NOOO!** **_DAAAAAADD!”_ **

He wouldn’t stop _screaming…_ Byran kneeled, vainly and delusionally trying to ‘wake up’ his deceased father. He didn’t stop… not until he heard the sound of a battering ram defeating all the locks on the front door. He took one look at cracks forming in the door… and then one look at the handgun still clutched in his father’s warm grip. 

**_No… Byran, don’t._ **

He picked it up without hesitation.

**_BYRAN, NO!_ **

The door burst open, giving way for the SWAT team breaching in. Byran unloaded the rest of the magazine into the first man that walked in. 

  
  


**_OH MY GOD! BYRAN!_ **

All the flashlights and MP5’s trained on him. Toriel saw the split second where he was sent backwards from all the bullets hitting his small body… **and then it all went black. Utter silence followed a bloodcurdling scream…**

  
  



	5. 04

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Not Toriel's business.

_ I wanna go home… _

_ I wanna wake up from this nightmare… _

_ I just wanted to help… _

  
  


So long since it all went out,  **so cold…** So far down, away from all warmth and comfort. There was no turning back, it could never be the same again. All that life could provide now was a dour yellow lamp and a patronizing voice sitting behind the desk. 

  
  


'SESSION 2'

**ᴀᴍ** 10:38

**ᴊᴜʟ** 07 1978

  
  
  


“Good- _ uh- _ morning! It’s good to see you again, you’re looking a lot better from the last time we got to sit down together. Do you  _ feel _ any better?”

* * *

**“** **_"-ɪ'ᴍ ᴀᴅᴍɪɴɪꜱᴛᴇʀɪɴɢ ɪᴛ ɴᴏᴡ._ **

**_ʜᴇ'ꜱ ꜰᴀʟʟɪɴɢ ᴀᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏɴ ᴜꜱ, ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴍᴏᴠᴇ ʜɪꜱ ɴᴇᴄᴋ!_ **

* * *

  
  


“ _ Right…  _ Well uhm, I was hoping that maybe it’d be alright if we could just  _ talk _ , you and I. About what.  _ Happened  _ on erh… The fifteenth of June. Ok well  _ obviously  _ we know what happened, aheheh. But um, we never got to see  _ your  _ side of the whollllllllehhh-incident.”

* * *

**"-ᴡᴇ'ʀᴇ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛᴏ ʟᴇᴀᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴜʟʟᴇᴛꜱ ɪɴ ꜰᴏʀ ɴᴏᴡ!"**

**"ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴄʟᴀᴍᴘᴇᴅ!"**

**"ᴡᴇ'ʀᴇ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴛᴏ ʟᴏꜱᴇ ʜɪᴍ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ- ɢᴇᴛ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ʀᴇᴀᴅʏ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ!"**

  
  


“That  _ is _ of course if you’re ready yet to.  _ Talk  _ about it.”

He sounded like he actually cared because that was his  _ job.  _ His whole friendly demeanor came with the suit he wore, it was pretty easy to read him as he sat on his side of the table twiddling his thumbs and making quick nervous glances at his coworkers standing behind the mirror that sat behind  _ him.  _ Their attention wasn’t on him though, rather at the young man glaring through his reflection, shackled to the table. 

* * *

**"- ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ɴᴏᴛ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴛᴏᴘ ʀᴇꜱᴜꜱᴄɪᴛᴀᴛɪɴɢ!**

**ʜᴇ ʜᴀꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴘᴜʟʟ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ, ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴇᴀʀ ᴍᴇ?**

**ʙʏʀᴀɴ ʀᴀɴᴛᴢ** **_ʜᴀꜱ_ ** **ᴛᴏ ʟɪᴠᴇ!"**

* * *

“Byran?”

Byran was still alive but he looked like he was just about dead. He never looked so much like  _ Brainz _ even being so young,  _ especially  _ being so young. He still didn’t have those scars… the staples were in their place, still holding his face together. The way he glared with that one green eye of his was  _ born _ here… His other eye was covered by the medical wrappings that still obscured a good part of his head. What really sold it though, what  _ truly  _ would make Toriel think about the man she met: was the hopeless look on this kid’s face. Amidst everything he lost, his innocence had perished with his family. He was still crying… Just without making a sound or a fuss, he probably didn’t even know he was doing it, mind the occasional sniffle. 

He did answer the man, in the most miserable sounding mumble he could make while looking down at the floor to avoid eye contact.

“ _ What…”  _

“Did you hear what I told you?”

“ _ Yes…”  _

“Did you want to  _ say _ anything?”

Byran paused for a second to scratch near his bandages. He looked up finally and blurted this out. 

“You killed my dad… That’s what happened.” 

He sniffed and suppressed a couple of sobs that wanted to slip out. But he never lost his composure for more than six seconds… He  _ never  _ went past six.

The suit sighed impatiently and rolled his eyes. 

“Again, from the bottom of my heart: I am  _ terribly  _ sorry that that had to happen. I really am on the behalf of everyone involved in that night. They didn’t arrive with the intent to just  _ shoot  _ people.”

“Yeah? Then  _ why’d  _ ya  **_do it!?_ ** ”

Byran took offense to that ‘apology’ even if he felt this man had nothing to do with it. He almost jumped up from the outburst, only arrested by the binding on his leg and the sharp pains from the stressed sutures in his stomach. 

“Easy there, you don’t wanna pop another stitch again, you alright?”

Admittedly, Byran took a quick peek under the scratchy and loose fitting shirt he wore. He calmed down after looking.

“Mhm, yeah… but why did you do it?” 

Another grunt, the sound of expended patience.

“Your par- your  _ father  _ gave them no choice. He made the choice to not only put the officers’ lives in danger, not only his and your- your ‘ _ sister’s mother’s’  _ lives. But also his  _ children’s  _ lives, yours and your sisters. You don’t think it’s ‘not very nice of him’ to do that to you?”

“My dad didn’t do  _ anything  _ to me. You guys ‘ _ did something to me’ _ you wanna  _ see?” _

He would’ve gotten a ‘no’ if he gave the man enough time to respond. Byran stood up a bit in his chair and lifted up his shirt to reveal the mess of brownish bandages and bullet shaped scars that were in their infancy.

The man was about done being friendly and inviting now, not enough patience to sustain it. 

“Well, you know:  _ you  _ didn’t give them much of a choice either. What you did was not only  _ beyond  _ reckless, but just  _ terrifying  _ for those officers… You really don’t know how lucky you are to be  _ alive _ after that.”

“He killed my dad, I’m not sorry for what I did.” 

The man leaned back in his chair and subtly shook his head at the people behind him. 

“ _ Well,  _ about that. I actually have some good news for you: the officer you shot has made a full recovery.”

“I thought you said you had  _ good  _ news…” 

There was an aggravated scoff.

“ _ Byran.  _ That means that you didn’t end up  **_killing_ ** someone and that the  **_charges_ ** won’t be as  _ bad  _ against you. So yes, that  _ is  _ good news. That is  _ very  _ good news and I think you need to realize how lucky you are.”

Now  _ Byran  _ scoffed, with a restrained laugh molding from his emerged sniffles. He composed himself and actually started grinning, much to the displeasure of the man behind the table getting quickly frustrated by a seven year old. The kid smugly grinned even though it hurt the one side of his mouth.

“That’s not going to mean anything. My da- ‘ **_Sir_ ** ’ told me how this works. I’m ‘screwed’ either way.” 

The man was making much more frequent glances behind him now, like he was asking for help without trying to let Byran know he had the upper hand. The guy still  _ tried  _ though, even without his reinforcements. 

“ _ Riight…  _ Your father told you a  _ lot  _ of things, huh. Apple didn’t fall too far from the tree? Told you everything you’d need to know to carry on his ‘ _ legacy’?” _

“Mmm. No, you killed him before he could finish.”

Baitren’s death seemed to be upsetting the suit more than it was Byran. He’d smirk every time he saw the angered cringe from across the table, which only pissed the guy off even more: so much that his chair suddenly slid back as he sharply stood up.

“What I  _ MEAN-” _

He took a breath and moved a lone bang from his shiny forehead. 

“-is; did he share anything with you about his… ‘ _ business?’  _ stuff like: his  _ friends,  _ or where he ‘ _ worked’  _ or, how he  _ got  _ all of those big guns? Because that’d be  _ a lot  _ to put on a young man’s shoulders like that. Like, did you ever  _ ask  _ to be involved in all of this? Or did you father choose  _ for  _ you?”

Byran… didn’t have anything to say. His eyes glazed down to the table as he sat silently, back to how he was at the start of this conversation. He looked vulnerable again, and the man took this as an opportunity to bring out the friendly demeanor once more. 

“It’s alright, I get it. Even if you did say ‘yes’ to him, you felt like you  _ had  _ to, right? You didn’t want to disappoint him, especially with him keeping you secluded from the outside world like that: was he your only ‘friend?’.”

No answer still, not even an acknowledgement. The guy continued while slowly approaching Byran.

“You didn’t want to let him down, so maybe you would make yourself feel like he didn’t put you up to this. After all, you did well by him and you took everything he gave you: you’re a pretty smart and hardy kid, you know that? I’m just sorry you had to be  _ applied  _ like that, that your whole life had to be  _ forced into this  _ from him…”

The guy was right next to Byran, and noticed the quivering and hard swallows. He placed his open hand on the kid’s shoulder, who almost seized up from the contact. The man didn’t retract his arm though, and tried to go forth with his soft gesture. 

“ _ Byran.  _ I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to follow up with him anymore. You can still have a proper life, we can take care of everything for you and we can find you someone to take  _ care _ of you, a  _ real _ home for you to live in. You don’t have to be the  **‘bad guy’** . But you gotta help us out here, we need to know if Baitren told you  _ anything  _ we don’t know. You won’t be in trouble no matter what you say… In fact, you could help us save anybody else who may feel ‘stuck’ or ‘forced’ like you, do you know what I mean?”

A long pause came and ran its course and Byran soon looked up to the fraudulent sympathetic face. He’d been tearing up again, but he looked so bla·sé. Byran looked the guy dead in the eyes and said

“ **No.** I don’t know anything that you people want. But even if I did, I wouldn’t tell ya. Go kill more people by  **_yourselves.”_ **

Friendly face:  _ gone.  _

“Okay, I’m done trying with you.I come in being respectful and courteous to you and you’re just going to act like a stubborn little brat. Ok-”

He sprung up away from Byran and gathered the few papers he brought into the room, the guy started for the door.

“- Y’know, I was  _ only _ trying to help. But I guess you aren’t in the mood to actually help yourself,  _ soo-” _

Byran piped up.

“I  _ told  _ you, I don’t  _ know  _ anything.”

He was ignored.

“-Why don’t you just stay put right here and when you wanna start telling the truth, I’ll be glad to help you out.”

“Wait! I said I don’t _know_ anything! _I don’t_ ** _know!!_** _Waiiiit!”_

The suit nodded at the mirror and the door to the room clicked open moments after, he looked back to Byran one last time who tried to come after him but was arrested by the binding on his foot. When it became apparent that nothing he would say or do would stop him from being left alone again, Byran slunk back to his seat without a further word. 

“Oh, by the way-”

The man leaned back into the room.

“-We still haven’t found your sister there yet. Just figured you wanted to know.” 

“You won’t.”

“What’s that?”

Byran looked up again with a dead expression on his face, something that’d become Brainz’s resting face. He spoke up.

“You’ll  _ never  _ find her.” 

* * *

**ＩＴ ＨＵＲＴＳ WAKE ME UP PLEASE.**

**ＳＯＭＥＯＮＥ ＰＬＥＡＳＥ，I'M TRAPPED IN THIS NIGHTMARE**

**ＨＥＬＰ ＭＥ HELP ME**

* * *

On that note… when all was through: the lights went out, but Byran wasn’t alone. Toriel was here the entire time, a spectator picking out the fraud and fear. But now there was nothing left here for her except the child slumping over into his folded arms on the table… Toriel could hear his quivering breaths. After… what she saw… He  _ survived,  _ so that was a good thing, right? Of course he did, he wouldn’t have been here and  _ there _ if he died that night.

Now what? Unlike Byran, Toriel wasn’t trapped here, at least she wasn’t sure that she was. She could get up and try the door whenever and see what would await her eyes next. She could do this but instead Toriel decided to sit down with Byran  **and sob uncontrollably.**

[Share this lament.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy5Ow8kW000)

She wailed for everything she had seen and heard, and everything that stabbed her heart. Toriel sobbed for all the cruel misfortune and loss inflicted  _ too early,  _ **_unfairly_ ** on this undeserving child. What she had wept the most for though was something that hadn’t been shown to her in spade. What made Toriel feel the most vile and sick was how after all this pain that Byran had to endure, she was the one that he succumbed to. The one thing this human didn’t expect harm from and it ended up killing him. 

“I really  _ am _ . A terrible person…”

She sat and wept with Byran some more, both of them feeling quite so sorry for him. Toriel was already aware she had said this  _ quite  _ enough already but she still couldn’t refrain from it.

“I really am so,  _ so  _ **sorry,** child…” 

Of course she couldn’t apologize to Byran and  _ of course _ she couldn’t embrace and comfort him like they both needed. She couldn’t help him or take back what she had done to him… so the real question arose here: why  _ was  _ this all occurring to Toriel? Why was any of this occurring if the only thing that could be accomplished was to put her through the same misery Byran Rantz experienced in his life? She sat there wondering this while the tears kept flowing, until a cognizance finally struck her and Toriel could envision for the first time: the precipes of fulfillment in this vicarious reality. 

This:  _ all this,  _ was her  _ punishment.  _ For what she had done to him, Toriel would be forced to walk along with him as a passenger. She had no say or terms of agreement to any of this, but at the same time: she felt like she  _ had  _ to keep going. Toriel owed as much to Brainz, to see everything through: to know just  _ what  _ she wasted: how many years of suffering she discarded.  _ Maybe _ when she finally reached the end and found her way back to the bloody remains in the castle, just  _ maybe  _ could this come to a closure. Toriel knew she would never forgive herself and so it nullified the chance of this being done as an act of penance, but she was willing and oh so determined to know everything… even if it meant more pain for her. Much  _ much  _ more pain to come. 

The monster quieted her debilitating sorrow and stood up. She moved over to the door, driven by actual purpose. When she reached the door and went to try it, Toriel was halted by Byran’s voice coming from behind her.

“Can I come out now?” 

  
  


Toriel turned around to face a much smaller room made of concrete and iron bars, the depressing yellow lamp was now hanging from a metal ceiling. Byran had been free to walk around with nary a piece of furniture to restrain him to: mind a very uncomfortable looking bed, a bathroom fixture, and a slab of wood protruding from a wall. Byran wasn’t interested in any of that though, he was standing right before the hard metal door that ultimately confined him in here. His outfit had changed as well: red shirt, red pants with the word,  **‘JUVENILE’** printed on both of them. 

A wide slot in the middle of the door opened and through it came a plastic tray with food on it for Byran to take. He tried to peek through the slot at whoever was behind it, repeating himself with more concern.

“ _ May  _ I be let out now?”

The slot closed up and the footsteps departed. This wasn’t the first time he had asked this, somehow Toriel knew this. This would be instead, the  _ last _ time Byran ever asked that question. He took to his confinement and kept to himself from now on. Byran would remain in this cell for a long time, he’d outgrow his current duds and get a new set when the sun came up enough times. Trapped, devoid of any love or just someone to talk to. This was the precursor to that damned apartment, but worse in so many ways. It seemed like he would just sit and  _ rot  _ here until the end of time, but that couldn’t be. He  _ had _ to be let go  _ eventually  _ but he just kept growing and waiting day after day with no end or absolution in sight. 

Then came one particular day, it was the first time Toriel noticed the calendar stuck to the cell’s wall. (Amidst other things that didn’t seem to exist until now: books, drawing supplies, etc) The top showed a picture of bunnies sitting in a field and the bottom shared some information with her.

* * *

**\- {1 9 8 6 }-**

**\--DECEMBER--**

All of the dates on it were barren except for two. Christmas day came already adorned with little cartoon bunnies in Santa hats. However, the  **22nd** had been circled countless times by many different utensils. 

Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the cell door.

“Rantz! Let’s go.”

Byran made for the door while its slot opened up again. He put his back to the opening and stuck his hands through it. He removed his hands after handcuffs had been affixed to his wrists, only then would the door open and he would be finally ushered from the room by a pair of guards. One guard entered the room and started putting all of Byran’s possessions into a sack. Toriel followed the escort, but she was almost stopped by her first real view of the corridor outside of the tiny room. It looked a lot like the one she found herself in… just a lot less  _ red.  _

One of the guards spoke to Byran as they walked down the empty block.

“So, this is it huh?... The big day?”

“Mhm.”

Byran wasn’t too vocal but his ability to feel happiness was still reflected by his tone. The one guard continued to talk to him…  _ he was a good guy. The only thing Toriel needed to know about him was that he wasn’t like the others.  _

“You nervous?”

“Mm- _ hm.” _

“I get it, but you just gotta take it one day at a time and it won’t seem so scary eventually.”

Then the other guard spoke,  _ he was just like the others. _

“I mean, not much has changed. You’ve been in here, what? Only  _ eight  _ years?”

He got a disapproving look from the good guard.

“ _ Jackson!..” _

“What? I just wanted to help,  _ sheesh…”  _

They went their way through more rooms, were buzzed through many doors, and they briefly parted so Byran could have some privacy to change into some normal looking clothing that didn’t really fit him well. He traded the red duds for his laundry sack of scant possessions. There were a couple more doors afterwards and then they were outside. 

The air was already cold, the windchill made it even colder. Without this sting of a winter day, this would’ve felt so much more surreal. Surreal as they walked across a yard lined with barbed wire fences and concrete towers fit with snipers, surreal as Byran watched the last barrier between him and the outside world creaking open. Perhaps nothing felt real enough until he alone took the first step onto free ground and the nice guard wanted to shake his hand. Contact still made him cringe, but the intention was nice enough. The man smiled at him.

“Good luck out there.”

Then the huge iron gate clang shut and the guards returned to their life within as Byran stood in his new life without. A world that had proved to be just as cruel and confining as the one he walked out of, it was just bigger and he was just  _ alone  _ now. Byran had nobody, nobody except  _ ‘her’. _

Toriel would only notice that there was somebody else outside when she saw Byran without warning, breaking into a full sprint for them. There was a lone little woman standing beside her blue automobile, wrapped up in a gray wool coat that was quite bigger than her with a matching scarf too. She barely had any time to react to the boy running for her, but she managed to open her arms up before he clashed into her. It was a surprise Byran didn’t tackle her to the ground, she only had a couple of inches of height over him at best, this woman just closed her arms around him as tightly as she could: Byran would do the same for her. 

Toriel couldn’t question it yet, the woman spoke: she sounded ecstatic, bordering crying.

“ _ Byran!  _ Ohh my god. Look at you! You’ve gotten so  _ tall!  _ I can’t believe you’re finally  _ here,  _ sweetie! I finally  _ got you,  _ I’m  _ so  _ sorry it took so long. I am  _ so sorry…”  _

He didn’t say anything, Byran was content with just holding onto her with his head buried into her scarf. The woman managed not to go hysterical, even if she did have tears starting down her face. She calmed herself with a sniffle and eased her grip on the boy a bit.

“It’s alright, sweetie. It’s. It’s gonna be alright now, I  _ promise  _ It’s all going to be alright. I  _ knew  _ I would get you out before Christmas, did I not? You won’t ever have to spend another one alone,  _ again.  _ I-i just-”

Another wind chill came through and caused her to shiver and digress.

“WHooof! It’s  _ cold  _ out here! You must be  _ freezing _ , you poor thing. Here. Let’s get in the car, I got the heat turned up. And why don’t we go and get you some  _ real  _ clothes real quick. Nice warm fuzzy clothes, anything you want-”

  
  


She opened the passenger door for him and his things, and got into the driver’s seat.

“- and then, we’ll go and get you some  _ real _ food. Real  _ real _ food or real  _ bad  _ food-”

A small giggle.

“- again,  _ whatever  _ you want, Byran. Anything you want- Be sure to buckle up. Let me see if I can get some music. You still like The Beatles, right?” 

That was the last thing Toriel heard before the car awoke and drove away from the prison, leaving her behind. The world did that ‘pausing’ thing again when the car vanished from sight: the cold wind stopped and the ambience went quiet. It made sense though, if everything was a memory from Byran’s perspective, then this place had no further relevance to him, it didn’t  _ matter _ any more. 

This lull was just fine though… It let Toriel sit and think. Who  _ was _ that woman? This woman who came from the blue and was  _ nice  _ to this kid for once. It couldn’t have been his (half) sister, she seemed a little too  _ old  _ to be so…  _ that and she wasn’t busy abandoning Byran. What DID happen to that girl anyway?  _ No no, this wasn’t that: strangely even hiding behind that big jacket and scarf and big rimmed glasses: the woman looked kind of like  _ Margillia.  _ It wasn’t her though, there was no  _ way,  _ that she beast would never be capable of this kind of kindness for her son… _**that and she was kind of dead.**_

Toriel afflicted herself with this thought, she just  _ had  _ to know what this was. Who was this woman? She tried to scrutinize every last detail, looking for something to relate, but nothing had ever occurred to her before: the way she dressed, the car she drove, her gentle voice, or the endearing way she called him ‘sweetie’. Such a sweet tone… almost  _ sickly  _ sweet to the point of being torturous.

In happiness and joy.

**Sweetie…**

Sadness and loathing.

**It’ll be alright, sweetie…**

Desolation and despair.

**_ＳＷＥＥＴＩＥ..._ **

**_ɪɴᴄᴏᴍɪɴɢ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ._ **

**_S̷̖̱̖̰̘̦̯͖̲͉͐̒͑̈́̈́͑͂̕W̶̪̩̉̈́͆E̶̱͇͋̍͐͂E̷̺̳̞̠̩̗̪̩͖̒͒͠T̶̙̹̳̬̘̃͜ͅI̶̳̭̹̲͔̣̖̫͆̆͛̌͊͆͘E̷̢̛̱̺̲̮̒̈́̃̽͠͠ͅ_ **

  
  


**_𝙺𝚎𝚎𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚗𝚘𝚜𝚢, 𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚎𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝙲𝙾𝚆𝚂 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝙼𝚈 𝚋𝚞𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜._ **

**_“SWEETIE…”_ **

That voice… 

* * *

Toriel realized the world was no longer static. What it was hadn’t resumed, but what was left of it started to  _ shift:  _ the endless sky above turned jet black, all the trees that lined the drive up to the facility lost all color and started to melt like candlesticks, the wilderness that peeked between them was now nothing more than a red gradient, the ground beneath her feet cracked and fissured while jagged boards of lumber emerged from beneath. 

The world would continue to deform but Toriel wouldn’t notice anything further, something else took her full attention: Something that moved just like her, that started so  _ insignificant,  _ **_that looked kind of *LIKE* her…_ ** It came for her, walking gingerly up the long drive: straight from a feverish nightmare bathed in RED. 

[NOT-Toriel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W3wjmswJNQ)

There were so many things wrong with this, it’d be redundant to think about every horrific feature this apparent ‘doppelganger’ had; because Toriel had seen this thing before…  _ when it smiled at her and TOOK her.  _

_ “ _ **_Hello. TORIEL…”_ **

It wasn’t SMILING this time. Its voice was like the amalgamation of everything Toriel had ever uttered: every inflection of every tone broken apart and mashed back together into this wicked sounding collage. 

“You  _ ARE  _ **not** supp _ OS _ e **D** two BE he **re** , As  **_a_ ** matter? Of  _ fact!  _ You are.  **_Not._ ** ” 

Everything behind this approaching thing dissolved into shadows, the world was actively decomposing all around it. Even if she didn’t have every  _ reason,  _ Toriel had every sense to run away, lest this thing come into contact with her again. She started to back away but the wrought iron gate behind her prevented that. The red monster was yards away, Toriel could see through the various holes in its body, into nothingness.

She thought of making a run for either side with the ‘melting’ treelines, anywhere would be better than this.  **It was impossible though.** Her first steps were all she could take before being stopped by what felt like walls but there was nothing  _ there _ ! Any way she turned was halted by these invisible barriers, it was like she was trapped in a corridor once again. The scenery on boths sides was no more than deceptive  _ pictures  _ illusioning at ‘depth’ and ‘freedom’, the floor was totally composed of polished wooden planks. This wasn’t ‘ _ OUTSIDE’  _ anymore, it never truly was. She was still stuck inside of this god forsaken house! The void above suddenly burst with RED, the bright glare burning away at all the lies.

The abhorrently wicked was so close that Toriel could see into its empty eye sockets, at the two faint red lights sunken so far into her own head. It got as close as it wanted and opened its broken maw. Toriel would be able to smell its breath… it reeked of something rotten and made her think of death. 

“What DO you think you  **are** **_DOING?_ ** The  _ party.  _ Is over.  **_OVER!!_ ** ”

Seeing that it hadn’t up and lunged at her again and that she had no other options, Toriel whimpered a response. (That and she was too terrified to move)

“What.  _ Are _ you??”

She saw the ‘eye-lights’ jump in radiance, the thing let out an unearthly growl that peeled the paper from the walls. All of its rows of teeth sank through its nonexistent lips.

“I think  _ YOU-have  _ been ASKing  **_too_ ** many QUESTIONS! Around here. As IF you have not caused enough  **_ENOUGH!_ ** _ PROblems  _ here, HERE!”

Toriel shook, every tremor and jitter this thing had was a means to make her flinch and cower. There was absolutely no respite from this, and it only worsened when it brought up her own failures. There was no specific context to this thing, yet she _knew_ it was talking about what she did in the underground.She felt herself getting defensive and couldn’t control the frightened outburst. 

“How can you  _ know _ about that??” 

The snarl on its face warped into a terrible grin. It roared with laughter mixed with disrespect and followed by a mocking sneer.

  
  


“Oh,  **_S̵̯̟͙̤̜̹͒̓̾̍̂̎̐̏̈́͜͠ͅW̷̫̘͑͌E̵̪̹̟̭̯̿̈̆̂͜E̷̢̺̺̣̯̦̅͐̍͋̄̆̂̔͘Ț̶̝̌̓̓̆͂̎͠͝I̴̢̦̞̜̪̪̠͍̗͝Ę̸̣͉̘̯̳͚̜̈́͗͂́̇_ ** _ wouldn’t you like to know.  _ Unlike  **_you,_ ** I’VE been here a  _ loooong  _ time. And  **_really?_ ** Unlike YOU. I have not been-  _ LEFT HIM  _ alone.  **_ALONE!_ ** I have been  _ here _ for him since the beginning.  **Beggg-gINING!”**

Its form started to blur and mishape but that didn’t seem to bother nor distract it from its tirade,  _ even  _ as its voice distorted and warped into all directions.

“Before you **_showed up_** and. _Lied._ ** _LIES ALL LIES!_** I know you whispered those _sweet_ **_NOTHINGS!_** Into his ear. ‘ _Ohhhh SweEetie! It’s all going to be ALLLRIGHT, I’ll_ ** _NEVER_** _betray you…_ **BETRAY YOU!’-”**

The only things Toriel could make out were its ‘eyes’, bending themselves to look inquisitive. Its voice became all sweet again, to the point it was making her nauseous. 

“- _ Buut what did you DooOOoooo?” _

Then it started to reform… into something different, something much smaller. The scars on its face were a dead giveaway, it didn’t even have to create the tears of the ‘lost’ look on the child’s face. In a moment, little Byran would be looking right up at Toriel: hurting as all ever and soaked with his own blood. 

“You threw me  _ away _ just like everyone else… Just like my  _ mom  _ wanted to. I thought you  _ loved  _ me, that’s why I came  _ back…  _ I just wanted to be  _ loved…”  _

“ **No.** **_No_ ** **no no…”**

Toriel just shook her head near vacantly. The sight put her into a trance, she couldn’t take her eyes off of it no matter how much she wanted to. ‘Not-Byran’ continued to ‘wail’ his voice was spot-on and hit Toriel in all of the perfect places.

“B-but. You let them  _ take  _ me, you  _ gave  _ me to them. Just when I thought I could be  _ HAPPY  _ again… I should have known. I  **_should._ ** Have known…”

It managed a lone sniffle before dissociating and rebuilding its monstrous identity, it exploded with sick laughter. Intoxicated by it, by the sight of Toriel cowering and tearing up. Toriel managed to shudder words out, even fighting her immense grief. 

“You.  _ Y-you  _ **_wretch_ ** **ed** thing. As if I plagued myself enough with my  _ own  _ guilt. You  _ prey  _ on it.”

It was happening again, the strangest occurrence. Under the heaviest and most painful kind of duress, so far from the end of her wits: Toriel felt such a tinge of clarity. An epiphany climbing with the cold,  _ dead  _ feeling inside of her. Brainz  _ was _ sick, that much was obvious. This demon lived inside of him: taking every opportunity, every situation, every form, exploiting every vulnerability, bringing his sanity down to the lowest it could go being synonymous with the worst experiences and people he had ever endured. In short:  **Toriel was the worst thing that could happen to him, so of COURSE it looked like her. She was already so good at tormenting herself with the past.**

With this realization, came her bold move to  _ challenge  _ her hateful reflection. To finally face it, rather than to hide and loathe beneath it like she had been doing for all these years. There was no possible way this could make anything better, but like seeing through to Brainz’s story: she owed it to him that much. She  **_REALLY_ ** owed it to this hell loving creant to give it a piece of her mind. After all, it was living inside of  _ her  _ now, and she hadn’t even begun to express how much she hated it. 

It… Not-Toriel stopped laughing. It stopped grinning at her when it noticed the sternness coming into Toriel’s face. She composed herself enough to speak more fluently and to stand up straight instead of cowering over.

“You know… I never fathomed that it would be possible for me to  _ hate  _ myself more than I already do, but I was  _ wrong-” _

Not-Toriel smirked at her.

“-you were  _ right  _ though. The ‘ _ party?’ is  _ over.”

The smirk was short lived and vanished. Toriel only found her trademarked glare. 

“There is nothing further I can do that  _ matters…  _ and for that sake: there is nothing further  **_you_ ** can do to  _ me, is  _ there?” 

The red thing had nothing to say, good. Toriel wasn’t  _ finished  _ yet. 

“That is probably why you have come to  _ ridicule  _ me and use my own regrets as weapons to me, instead of attacking me when we first  _ met.  _ Because  _ what  _ would that accomplish? You have already exploited my pain once, there is no telling how many times you have done it to him. To think, I judged him for his alleged  _ crimes _ when I should have been pointing at  _ you.  _ I remove my prior question: I know  _ exactly  _ what you are and it is almost comical that you have decided to present to me as my own image.”

Toriel wiped her eyes and even found something to be kind of  _ funny…  _ In a morbidly depressing and not-so funny kind of way. 

“ _ You.  _ Are what is born after a lifetime of regret and self hatred. When somebody clouds their mind with so much self loathing, that it will eventually speak for them-”

She had brought herself down to that monotonous  _ drone.  _ The lowest her voice could go, the furthest from happiness. Toriel even narrowed her gaze for her eyes to pierce her doppelganger. Her  _ doppelganger,  _ looked like a cornered animal.

“-I know what you are. Because I have housed you for a long time,  _ myself:  _ long before Brainz fell down. I simply never imagined you existed within him too, that you drew  _ far _ more from him than I ever let you take from  _ me.  _ That leaves me without a sliver of wonderment as to how you forced me to violence: you had two worlds worth of suffering to feast on… and  _ now?  _ You have  _ nothing.” _

It seemed that Not-Toriel began to lose her form involuntarily, her solidity was beginning to go and the red hell that encompassed both of the monsters was steadily losing its color. The real Toriel did notice, it certainly didn’t dissuade her from further progressing her point. Even going so far as advancing towards the shrinking visage. 

“There are no further means for you to poison the real world. Both I and he have long since perished alongside everything and everyone else. There is nothing further for you to  _ corrupt.  _ You may stand before me  _ now _ and remind me of my sins, but that is only because I am now no more real than  _ you  _ are.”

Then her voice just flat out shifted to something almost casual. Toriel was basically  _ done  _ with this thing.

“ _ Inherently?  _ You can do whatever you please but you will not stop me from what I have to do…  **_you hell loving harridan…”_ **

With that… Toriel turned around and strutted away: begrudging Not-Toriel no further attention. The heavy iron gate that impeded her before was no more, it dissolved with the rest of the hostile environment that this demon brought upon.

What Not-Toriel did, was more appropriately considered as what it  _ didn’t  _ do:  _ anything.  _ All Toriel would experience would be a voice calling her out from behind, a faint  _ growl. _

“This isn’t over, you  _ B̶̘̯̆̔̔̅͆̈̃̊͒̆I̸̢̢͙͈͉̙̫̿̇͋̿̕T̸̨̛͓͍̹̱̞̎̈́̽̉̽͒̕Ç̶̡̤̜̟̙͖̑̑͂͗͌͜ͅH̶̫̬͚̪͉̀͑̑͆̉̅̾̂͝͝.  _ This is  **_NOT_ ** over!”

When she turned around though, the monster was gone along with the last of the red hue. Toriel was alone once again and it seemed she was  _ back _ as well. Back “ _ Home”,  _ but where were all the doors? There were but _two_ doors at an actual _end_ to this hallway, and when she turned around yet again... _This wasn't her 'home',_ it was Bryan's apartment. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. 05

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All good things come to their abrupt end eventually...

“I thought you said we were going  _ home!” _

The door had opened, the dim glow of hallway fluorescents crept into the dark space. In came the same Byran who climbed into the same woman’s car and the same woman who drove it, the child’s elusive smile was gone. She crept in next, her arm feeling for the trio of switches on the barely visible wall. That depressed yellow light would fill the room, it’d be the  _ only  _ thing filling the room as Toriel would quickly notice that there wasn’t a single piece of furniture inside: nothing but the fixtures that came with the place. It looked like nobody had been living here. 

The woman navigated to the tiny kitchen with the only elevated surface in the room, she was burdened with a manner of full tote bags. Most of the bags found a new residence on the counter, while a couple couldn’t help themselves but fall onto the floor. 

Byran strolled over to help pick up the small mess but the troubled look on his face only exacerbated as he whined to the woman.

“Why are we  _ here??  _ What’re we even  _ doing  _ here??” 

The woman didn’t seem to react to him, she just finished scooping up a couple of soup cans and placing them into one of the empty cupboards. 

“Aunt Loisa, what’s going  **_on_ ** **_???”_ **

  
  


‘... Aunt Loisa?’ 

Toriel had been taken aback by the term. On one claw this answered a lot of questions she had about the past memory, on the  _ other _ … 

‘Aunt,  _ Loisa?...’  _

Here was this partially frail looking lady who was almost a dead ringer for well… She must have been on _Margillia’s_ side. What was she doing here though? For that matter, why had she come in _now_ and not _before?_ Such trivial questions answered, but such significant questions arose. This wasn’t even the proper opportunity to dwell on them, the memory continued whether Toriel was ready or not. 

At the final attempt for her attention, Aunt Loisa stopped stocking and paused for a moment before she finally turned around. If anything, she looked far more upset than Byran did, she was just doing a better job at sustaining her composure. She took a deep breath through her nostrils and almost murmured, she was speaking so softly.

“Byran… we’re going to have to.  _ Hunker down  _ here for a little while.”

“ _ What?!-” _

The outrage in his outburst, Byran never saw this coming. 

“- _ Why?!” _

He desperately looked to his aunt for answers. She was finding it hard to look back to him, let alone to say anything further. The silence only made everything feel so much worse, Byran started to shake. He was fast on his protest.

“I don’t wanna be here, I wanna go home! You said I could go home with you, aunt Loisa! Why can’t we go _home?!”_

The woman’s face trembled, she pressed her lips together and tried to stay cool: even slowly shaking her head… but it didn’t work. Seeing her nephew so upset so quickly… not even having to think about what he just walked out of. Aunt Loisa removed her glasses and knelt down. 

“ **_We can’t yet, I’m sorry…”_ **

There was something about her voice, how lightly she used it. She really didn’t want to say these words to him, it was like this was killing her. Byran didn’t feel like yelling again but he did reinstate his initial question with the same kind of reluctant whisper.

“But  _ why?” _

Aunt Loisa sighed and sniffed, rubbing her eyes with her sleeve.

“ _ Parole…” _

She finally said. 

“You’re out on parole.”

“What does that  _ mean?” _

“Parole is when someone is allowed to  _ leave  _ the prison before their sentence is over. They get to live their life again… but they still are  _ serving  _ their time.”

Byran was confused, by all means he just wanted to know why this meant that he wasn’t allowed to go ‘home’. His aunt had to get right to the point, this kid had done enough waiting to last his whole life. She continued.

“When somebody is serving their parole, they aren’t allowed to do certain things. And  _ one  _ of those things, at least in  _ our  _ case…  **you aren’t allowed to leave the state** for the rest of your sentence.”

Toriel could’ve hurt herself trying to think of why that meant anything, but Byran was the one that answered that particular question. 

“But. Aunt Loisa. Your house is in-”

“I know…”   
  


“Does that mean I’m gonna be  _ stuck  _ here for another-”

The sound of the stifled sobs coming from her nose cut off Byran. Aunt Loisa just nodded while her cheeks started to get soaked. 

“I know sweetie, I  _ know.” _

She began to sniffle. Byran wouldn’t shed a single tear, he looked more conflicted or frustrated than anything. It wasn’t to say he wasn’t upset to the point of crying though… he just didn’t feel like showing it. His aunt was already crying plenty enough for him.

“I’m  _ sorry, _ I should have told you when you got out. But you were just so  _ happy  _ and so was  _ I  _ that I could finally hold you again.”

Aunt Loisa cut her own hysterics off and tried to calm down.

“It’s just- the cursed  _ government  _ has been doing every vile trick they can to keep you from living your own life and it’s not  **_fair._ ** Why should  _ you  _ get punished for what your father made you do?”

She suddenly whipped her head back to the kid and quickly spoke as if to cut him off before he spoke. 

“I  **_know_ ** how you feel about your father, I’m not saying  _ anything  _ about him. But they’re doing this  _ because  _ of him. They’re still running their fat mouths to everyone that you may be-”

_ Feigned, with contemptful derision. _

_ “-Withholding crucial information  _ about his organization they’re still trying to bust.”

Byran scoffed, his frustration flashed over into anger. 

“Of course. Of  _ COURSE  _ they are! Fucking fat.  **_PIGS!”_ **

A more shocked outburst.

“Byran! Language!”

It was well intended and he really didn’t mean for it to slip out like that (The first of many to come) but this was a deep and raw nerve to strike.

“... _ What?!  _ It’s just that’s what they’ve been doing to me the entire time I was in  _ JAIL!  _ Poking me until I’d have to make something up because they won’t listen to me the  _ ten-BILLIONTH  _ TIME. I SAID  **_I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING!!!!”_ **

There wasn’t a further word or response as he quietly panted. Aunt Loisa merely waited for his breaths to slow, then embraced him gently. There didn’t have to be a break in the silence, at least not for a couple of minutes. She would speak in that whisper voice of hers when she was ready.

“We’re not going to stop. Not until you’re free, and they all see judgement for their corruption-”

She gave herself some distance from Byran so she could look him in his eyes. She tried to smile reassuringly.

“-Your old lady’s gotten  _ this _ far and she’s gotten pretty good at this: poking the right holes in this beast. It’ll be alright, Byran… I  **_promise._ ** I just need a little more time. You knew I’d come through for you, right? I promised you I would, and here we are… When we give a promise, we darn well  _ mean  _ it. I’ll walk to the end of the world to make it happen… Because I  _ love  _ you, Byran. Don’t forget that…” 

Another moment without words. Byran looked down to himself and slightly nodded, he trusted this woman. 

“How long?-”

He finally said, looking back up to her and swallowing something hard.

“-How long are we gonna have to be here?”

“We’re going to the court on the 20th. Our lawyer and I are rebuilding our appeal. Now that you’ve been granted parole, we should have a much better chance.”

“The  _ 20th?  _ That’s like a  _ month  _ from now.”

“Please don’t be disappointed, sweetie. Cecilia has done god’s work for us. If it wasn’t for her, the earliest I’d see a court would be eight months from now. I couldn’t thank her enough for all her hard work, it was because of her that they were even obligated to grant you this parole. She hasn’t asked for a single cent from us and we truly are blessed to have her-”

Aunt Loisa stood up again and made the gesture of the cross with her hand. She then replaced her glasses.

“- She’s the one reason I’ve my faith, that there are good people walking the earth still.” 

Byran would tighten his lips and nod vacantly. He never particularly followed that ‘faith’ stuff… granted he had a good reason for his skepticism until now. He wasn’t going to be rude though, not to her…  _ she  _ was the one good person in his life. Even if she believed Baitren never was. 

Aunt Loisa concluded the topic and all its doom and gloom with an amused exhale and a half grin.

“Cmon, help me get all this ice cream into the freezer before it melts. I  _ can’t believe  _ you got  _ so  _ much, we’re probably gonna have to eat most of it just to fit the rest in the freezer!”

Byran snrked and the smile came back. He playfully objected.

“Hey! That was all  _ you!  _ Are you  _ nuts?”  _

“Ah, thank you for reminding me! We need to go back, I forgot to get  **_pistachio!”_ **

“Aunt  _ Loisa!...” _

  
  


Their mutual laughter halted abruptly and their movements ceased too. 

**End scene.**

  
  


Back to walking around a still set, defying the stillness of a picture. This one hurt… It was leagues from the worst it could, incomparable to the soul rending violence. This memory, it was just so  _ bittersweet _ but everything hopeful about it would only rot into more bitterness for Toriel. It wasn’t for the persistence of mistreatment and coldness still afflicting this child, though the fact Byran’s Aunt hadn’t done more for him left an insatiable empty feeling inside. It wasn’t even her fault. 

Toriel was struck with a strange sensation, a  **_new_ ** strange sensation. For this woman standing before her, Toriel had this want to  _ touch  _ her. She had been constantly under this spell of surrealment ever since she ‘woke up’ after she died, and couldn’t see through the vagueness. Nothing felt truly real but she believed everything she saw. Toriel believed everything about ‘Aunt Loisa’ too but it wasn’t enough. Unlike everything else, she  _ wanted _ this to be real. After everything, this  _ had _ to be real. Real enough she could touch it, to set it apart from all the beasts and guttural sounds that lived in this nightmare. 

A claw hesitantly stretched out to feel the woman’s cheek, a bid to  _ feel _ something. Toriel wasn’t expecting to actually come into contact with it, it was a shock in it of itself… but it paled in comparison to what happened next. Aunt Loisa didn’t react herself but all the color stuck to her had faded away. Toriel looked away to see if the same would occur to Byran but as the color left the woman, so did everything else in the world. Byran was gone and so was the room, the monochrome statue of his aunt was the only thing left inside of an empty stage. Strangely though, this didn’t bother Toriel as much as it ought to: she felt a sense of bittersweet comfort and hopefulness. 

A glimmer caught her eye suddenly. Just behind Aunt Loisa, Toriel could see a faint glow off into the void. She had nothing else to do but to explore it, despite the world lacking any form or lucidity. Toriel was able to walk just as she would across a room, closer to the blurry light. When she could make out the details: it was…  _ Aunt Loisa  _ again. Toriel tried to turn around to see the twin, but the colorless one wasn’t there anymore:  _ This  _ one had color and was standing in a partially formed room, her clothes were different too.

When Toriel (more than reluctantly) came into contact with the woman again, the sensations changed. It felt like ten different emotions were mashing together, becoming confused and undeveloped. There was one she could distinguish though,  _ happiness.  _

[A sliver of comfort...](https://youtu.be/MO2LvgjzgmQ)

  
  


“You poor thing, you don’t deserve any of this. I am so sorry for what they’re doing to you, it is not right.”

There wasn’t a single hint of motion or life from the frozen person, but her voice could be heard all around. It echoed into the unfathomable distance surrounding this small mote of reality. 

“Let’s get a look at you. There.  _ Ohhh,  _ you just wanted to be held for once, don’tcha? You’re just a little sweetie, you know that? Your mother doesn’t know what she’s pushing away… C'mon, let’s try to get you cleaned up a bit.”

Her voice faded away and so did the hues that composed her. Another glow in the distance drew Toriel away. Another inflection of the same woman attracted her. The sensations felt more  _ refined…  _ happiness but also  _ fear.  _ Aunt Loisa sounded farther away this time… and also  _ angry. _

“This isn’t  _ right!  _ What you’re doing is cruel and unusual punishment to someone who’s still incapable of even  _ crawling!  _ What has he  _ ever _ done to you besides wanting your love and care?!”

There was another voice that answered back this time. It sounded even farther away, but it was  _ easier _ to distinguish. That shrill shriek coming from the red nailed harpy. 

“ _ Fuck you!  _ It’s my kid, I can do whatever I want with him!  _ Who  _ do you think you are, telling me how to live my life? Pompous  _ bitch!  _ Get out of my house before I tell Baitren you’re  **_trespassing.”_ **

Angry sounding footsteps grew nearer, a couple of sniffles became audible. Aunt Loisa spoke softly, she sounded much closer now. 

“I don’t even  _ recognize  _ her anymore. I am  _ so  _ sorry, Byran. I know you won’t believe me but this is  _ not  _ like her. I know my sister, this is not her. This is all  _ Baitren’s  _ fault, he did this to her… I’ll be back soon, I  _ promise.”  _

The color faded, and another fragment showed itself in the distance. Aunt Loisa was knelt down on a colorful rug, holding a stuffed rabbit. The feeling knew what it was now, it was joy. 

“It looks like you and her are becoming friends! Did you give her a name yet?”

The youngest sounding voice squeaked in response.

“Tami…”

“Tami? That’s a nice name. I’m glad you like her! She’s really soft, yeah?... What’s the matter, Byran?”

“I… don’t like hiding stuff from my parents. They will get mad at me if they find out.”

Aunt Loisa scoffed.

“You’re allowed to be happy, Byran. I got you her so you could have something for yourself. Are your parents going to scold you for being  _ happy?” _

“... I know  _ one  _ of them will-”

“Byran…”   
  


“-But I can be happy with  _ you, _ right?”

“ **_Oh, sweetie…”_ **

Toriel needed a moment to recoil after this one finished. This one really reminded her of the bottomless pit that sat inside of her, it was still possible to feel worse. Onto the next one… This one was  _ different.  _ All happiness and comfort were gone, replaced by hurt and fear. Aunt Loisa was very different too, she wasn’t standing all out and inviting anymore… Rather behind a pane of reinforced glass. She looked awful: her hair was all kinds of disheveled and it looked like she was wearing nightwear under that jacket of hers. Her voice was distorted, like it was coming from a phone.

“How’re you holding up, sweetie?”

Again, Byran was heard answering her. His slur was back, that one that came from having a hole in his lips. He sounded absolutely miserable.

“Terrible! They’re being so  _ mean _ to me! They act nice and then  _ yell  _ at me all the time!”

“God, as if these shameless people haven’t done  _ enough  _ to you… my poor  _ baby.  _ What’re they  _ doing?” _

“They keep bringing me to a room to ‘talk’ to me, because they think I know some of Dad’s secrets! I keep telling them no, but they tell me I’m lying! They tell me I’ll never get to go home if I keep telling lies but I’m  _ not!  _ They’re never going to let me go…”

He was still letting himself cry about it. Aunt Loisa though, was furious.

“ **_Damn them!-”_ **

Her voice lowered again.

“- I-I’m sorry, sweetie. I just- this is all because of your  _ father.  _ Not, you! The fact that they can do this to you without even batting an eye is just- This is an abomination of ethics! How could they do this to a little boy?”

Silence, Toriel was almost willing to get away from this place again, but Aunt Loisa’s voice came back, soft and gentle like before. 

“Byran… Listen to me, I’m going to get you out of here. I don’t know how long it will take me, I don’t know what I’ll have to do. But-  **_look at me._ ** May god be my witness, I am going to make everything better. I  **_promise…_ ** We’ve both lost so much, but I refuse to lose you: for you to lose  _ me. _ I’ll take care of everything.”

Being brought to tears every five minutes wasn’t even new anymore, it was just something inherent. Inherent as the good will of Aunt Loisa, the only person Byran was able to depend on. Unlike  _ somebody… sure it’s redundant to mention over and over again but how can you NOT She had done SO much better than Toriel did. _ **_How does it feel to see someone actually helping him? Someone who brought him up from the darkest depths into their arms? Someone who didn’t PUSH him further down. That’s right, she was SO MUCH better than you. She’s the person Brainz deserved, not *you*._ **

Toriel groaned softly, her ‘thoughts’ had become independent and turned on her. The self hating only stopped when her own thinking voice became too enthusiastic to demean her: she realized they weren’t thoughts so much as her evil clone whispering somewhere nearby. Unlike the bad conscience though, Toriel couldn’t shake that it was  _ right,  _ Aunt Loisa was a good person, the closest thing Brainz ever had to a mother. There was always hope whenever she was around, and there was hope even in that dingy apartment…  **_So what went wrong?_ **

Any new instances of Aunt Loisa failed to appear. Toriel found herself back standing beside one of them inside of a fully formed (and scantily furnished) apartment. Judging by the grave look on the woman’s face, Toriel was already feeling wary. She didn’t need Byran piping up to put her on edge…

“You have to  _ leave  _ me?”

Aunt Loisa was back to moving around and such for this scene. From her tired but frantic movements and twitching face, it looked like she was nearing the end of her rope.

“I have to get back to work, Byran… My leave is over and I don’t have any  _ days  _ left and-I-i still have to pay for the rent  _ here _ and my mortgage at  _ my _ home. I’m sorry, I  _ have  _ to. You have more than enough food and clothes to get you through the week and… I’ll be back Friday evening.”

The hopeful feeling was dwindling and Aunt Loisa was staring down an angry glare.

“You  _ said  _ that I wouldn’t have to be alone again! That’d we’d leave here together! You lied to me!”

Toriel could see the woman’s eyes widening and the sweat beading on her head. She threw her arms out and shook her hands.

“I wasn’t  _ LYING  _ to you! I didn’t think we’d have to be here for two  _ months _ because the case has been prolonged-  _ what do you want me to do??  _ I  _ have to  _ go back to work! We still need to  _ eat _ and have a roof over our heads.”

“OK  _ fine,  _ why do you have to go all the way back then? Why can’t you work closer to here?”

“I’ve been  _ trying _ to find a job that  _ paid  _ well enough to do that, but nothing even came  _ close _ to how much I have to spend every month! I’m.  **_Sorry,_ ** Byran. I have no  _ choice!”  _

“OK. What if. What if  _ I _ got a job? To help pay for everything??”

The mood seemed to shift right there, Aunt Loisa reeled back some from what she heard. No longer being assertive in her argument, more concerned now.

“What? What’re you talkin- You can’t get a job, you’re too young.”

Byran shook his head definitively. 

“No I’m not actually, I’m sixteen and I’m allowed to work part-time. My parole officer told me- he even  _ suggested  _ I get a job to keep me occupied.” 

She was taken back even more.

“ **_What?_ ** N- _ No _ ! You  _ can’t!  _ Byran, you have to get enrolled in  _ school.” _

“He said I could do both, that I’d be able to go to school and then go to work after.”

“ _ Nnoo!  _ Byran. You can’t do that, that’s  _ too much _ for you!” 

“No, it’s not. You said I was free to do anything I wanted, and I want to get a job. I’m tired of sitting here and  _ mooching  _ off of you, Aunt Loisa. It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to  _ me _ if you say no.” 

She was basically resigned at this point.

“Byran…”

He gestured his hand to turn her down, but in the most respectful way he could.

“Let me  _ help  _ you. You’ve helped me so much and now I wanna learn how to help myself and help you too… Dad always said there’s never a bad time to save up money, in case you need it. We  _ need _ it, Aunt Loisa…”

Toriel watched all the subtle ways Aunt Loisa’s expressions shifted in silence. She knew exactly what that meant: a  _ lot  _ of thinking was happening in her head.  If only Toriel could get into  _ her  _ head too … 

Eventually,  _ Ultimately  _ Aunt Loisa sighed and nodded her head understandingly. 

“Okay. And this is what you  _ truly  _ want, Byran? Not what your  _ parole officer  _ wants. I’m asking if this is what you  _ truly  _ truly want to do.”

He nodded. 

“Yeah, I want this.”

She nodded too, her posture straightened up as if the weight of the world slumped off her back. Her stress eased up and Aunt Loisa calmed her tone.

“Okay then. We’ll see to it on Saturday, okay?”

“Thank you.”

Aunt Loisa exhaled from her nose, a brief and amused tone. A weak grin formed on her face.

“I’m proud of you, you know that? I sincerely am.” 

The last thing this memory entitled Toriel to see was the slow and deeply caring hug Byran received. Life wasn’t going to be nothing but pleasantry, but Byran still had his ability to make the most of it, to do even better than that. 

Aunt Loisa may have left the apartment but Toriel remained with Byran. She had already been treated to the humdrum and tedium his life held, but watching it again: watching it  _ now  _ didn’t seem so bad anymore. She knew he wasn’t truly alone: sometimes Toriel could hear Aunt Loisa’s voice through the phone, Byran always lit up when he picked it up. Aunt Loisa came and went every so often too, the apartment seemed to clean up and gain new furnishings every time she came. 

This should’ve been endearing to see, it should’ve given Toriel such a feeling of relief that Byran was controlling his life… But that unanswered question refused to sink into her with every other bad feeling and deadly premonition:  **_What. Went._ ** **_Wrong?_ ** The playback became obscured to Toriel as all of her attention was drawn to that searing thought… At least it didn’t take precedence to her until the sound of a door slamming shut made her jump. 

Byran was gone… 

  
  
  
  
  



	7. 06

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is the root of all evil, but the ground they destroy and break through was doomed from the start.  
> It was paved with good intentions.
> 
> He was going to hell either way.

Toriel had never seen the apartment like this before:  _ empty  _ and devoid of Byran Rantz. The sound of the slamming door was still resonating through the room, immediately did Toriel make for the front door to follow Byran outside of the room and into the dim hallway. She had seen him operate the hefty door so many times that she knew by heart how to undo the legion of deadbolts and chain latches, but wait… 

The latches were still in place, Byran couldn’t have armed them from the outside: the front door wasn’t the culprit of the noise. Which door was it then? Toriel didn’t have to guess for long, the sound of muffled swearing could be heard behind another door at the end of a tiny hallway. Honestly, Toriel felt more anxiety about venturing within the apartment: she had seen what was on the outside of it but never saw the interior of another room besides this one. With the profanities continuing to seep through the one door, Toriel prepared for the worst and opened it. 

Well, there  _ Byran  _ was, he was sitting down at a desk: perusing through a big heap of papers mixed in with a hefty amount of clutter. The room was pretty dark, both of its windows were blocked by dusty looking blinds: the only real light in the room was from the lamp lighting up Byran’s desk. Apart from the desk though: Toriel was able to vaguely make out a small bed, a dresser, a pile of crinkled clothing on the floor… This was just his bedroom. Sure, it was so messy that it subtly triggered Toriel in five different ways… but there wasn’t anything  _ horrible  _ about it. 

“ _ Fuck!”  _

Byran frightened Toriel a good amount. Not only from the outburst but how he immediately looked over his shoulder and right at her for a moment, she almost considered saying something to him in a panic… He obviously didn’t see her and went back to what he was doing, albeit shaking his head with increasing emphasis. Toriel couldn’t help but notice about him that his voice had gotten deeper and he had gotten quite tall: his feet would barely touch the ground when he sat down, now they were firmly and comfortably planted on it. There was a featureless calendar sitting on his desk: 

**FRI|SEP-28**

**1989**

*BILLS

(That part was handwritten and circled with red ink) 

Byran murmured to himself and whispered as loud as a whisper could still be considered one.

“Shhh- _ IT!”  _

It seemed that there was something in all the mess on his desk that was greatly troubling him. Toriel did peek over his shoulder to see what was the matter but to her there was nothing but a bunch of numbers on all the papers, some numbers had been scribbled out with high prejudice. Toriel was at a loss for what was going on here. Byran would rifle through some papers, stare closely at another one, and then slap them back to the desk while silently shouting more profanities with increasing levels of frustration. The cycle continued for  _ hours  _ until Byran finally lost his temper and violently shoved everything to the floor with a furious growl. He calmed down and noticed the new mess he made, then slumped into his folded arms on the desk with a distressed groan. 

“What’m I gonna do?”

He muttered, muffled by his face being buried in his arms. 

“What am I gonnah  _ DDooooo?” _

Byran asked himself again, half of his words melting into a long yawn. He asked himself this question over and over while rubbing his eyes. Again, Toriel hadn’t the slightest idea on what was inherently _wrong._ Horrible thoughts began to pick at her again because at this point, anything was possible. All she could do was watch him crumble into a nervous wreck. It happened _again_ too: Byran swore audibly and then whipped around his chair, right at Toriel. It made her jump the first time, and now it was more deeply frightening her. Byran stared right at her for even longer before slowly turning back around. OK, he wasn’t looking at _her_ … he couldn’t have been. Toriel tried to see what could’ve been sitting behind her that took Byran’s attention so much but it was already too dark to see much. It didn’t help when Byran got up from his desk and killed the light, making seeing even more impossible. He stretched and cracked some of his joints before departing his dark room for the living area. 

What followed only packed on more to Toriel’s fluctuating anxiety. Byran was just pacing around the room without making any further sounds. This erratic behavior continued for what  _ felt  _ like hours, Toriel wasn’t really sure. There wasn’t any clock or time telling machine for her to look at except for Byran’s wrist watch, but there was no way Toriel could see it with him moving around like this! 

‘What the hell is going on?’ 

She wasn’t much for thinking out loud, especially not abrupt and brash statements but it felt quite apt to do so. 

The telephone rang, Byran urgently ceased his repetition and answered it before it could even finish its first ring. 

“ _ Hello??” _

He almost sounded desperate in his greeting, but his follow up couldn’t have sounded more casual.

“I mean hey, what’s up?” 

“I’m just taking it easy.”

Toriel was all but certain he was talking to his aunt just like nearly every time he picked up the phone. She couldn’t make out what she was  _ saying  _ again though… Like the first time, Toriel would only get  _ half  _ of the conversation through Byran’s responses. 

“Mm-hm! I just finished ah.  _ Going through them  _ actually! Yep yep yep.” 

“Oh- _ yeaah!  _ It’s all fine here, it’ll be a bit close but we’re good to go.”

His eyes were darting all around the ceiling, his hand nervously coiled and uncoiled the phone cord. The way his voice was confident, borderline  _ cock sure,  _ there was no way he was being genuine. The thing that broke it for Toriel was that grin he made, Brainz would wear the same one over twenty years later as he lied through his decaying teeth. She guessed now, that the smile he made wasn’t on purpose, it’s just what he did when he wasn’t telling the truth. But why now? 

“ _ Naahh! _ Nah. I just had to check my math, found a couple of places I dropped too much and a couple I didn’t drop enough…  _ not as much  _ as the others though.”

“I am? I don’t- What’re you talking about, I’m fine. I mean I  _ should  _ sound relieved that we can pay our bills after all,  _ right?” _

He laughed, spiked with nervous energy. It made his voice go up an octave or two for the duration. When his giggles subsided, Byran cleared his throat and brought his voice back to a ‘normal’ tone. His legs looked like they were trying to detach from him, they danced around so much.

“You’re coming here tomorrow, right?... I’ll have it all put together for you so you can see for yourself…  _ Yes,  _ I am one- _ hundred  _ percent sure I got it, so stop your worrying!  **_YEsss,_ ** _ trust me!”  _

He cringed on the last part. 

“...  _ Thank you,  _ I’ll see you tomorrow then, ok?... I love you too, b-bye.” 

* **_click_ ** _ *  _

“ _ HOoooouuggh, _ I can’t believe I just did that… why did I  _ do _ that?”

At the conclusion of the phone call, Byran slumped into the wall and slowly slid down to the floor with all kinds of long groans. He cradled his forehead like it was about to burst open and took some sharp breaths in and out his nostrils.

“ _ OK-” _

He whispered to himself with his fingers pressed into his cheeks. 

“-It’s gonna be  _ fine,  _ I just didn’t want her to worry- no need to rile her up for no  _ reason,  _ right?” 

Byran’s (still intact and only partially yellow) teeth chattered wildy. He made a quick glance to his watch, too quick for Toriel to see before the long sleeve covered it again.

“I got time, it’ll be  _ quick.  _ No one’s gonna know or kick up any fuss. No problem, right?”

He nodded to himself and stood up, quietly cheering himself on.

“ _ Yeah!  _ OK.”

He scampered back to his room, Toriel didn’t need to follow him because he emerged just moments later with one arm through a jacket sleeve. Byran fumbled around his person to find his room keys, he undid all the locks on the door and left the apartment after flicking the lights off: the two deadbolts clicked back into place right after he shut the door. Toriel would hear his footsteps becoming smaller in a damn hurry. She so  _ earnestly  _ wanted to see what he was up to: his persistently unusual behavior turned anxiety into pure dread. Toriel  _ couldn’t  _ though… By all means she didn’t actually try to walk out of the apartment or anything, but she just felt like she couldn’t follow him. All urges to validate this feeling were non-existent, something was telling her that it would be in vain. 

* * *

She had to  _ wait,  _ it didn’t feel like she was for long at least. However, she was perceptive to the time passing by the scant amount of light seeping from the window blinds, how it started to weaken and how the room steadily approached pitch blackness. Just when it felt an ample opportunity for the world to subtly shift into that ‘void’ nonsense again, footsteps were heard again. They came in an even  _ greater _ hurry than before and the way the door locks jiggled and clicked, it sounded like Byran couldn’t get the thing open fast enough. 

The lights came on and thankfully they revealed the same apartment and the same Byran who switched them back… Well,  _ almost  _ the same: he was damp with sweat and his clothes were partially encrusted with grime. In one of his hands was a huge shopping bag which he gently laid onto his table. Byran was out of breath, presumably from running. He reapplied all of the internal door locks and gazed through the peephole before letting out a big sigh. 

“HOooohh god… I need a drink.” 

He wouldn’t concern himself with the shopping bag again until two full glasses of tap water and a change of clothes. He sat down at the table and began reaching into the overturned bag. The way the mouth of it folded up, made it so Toriel couldn’t see inside of it which sure did her dread a huge favor. 

Byran brought something out of the bag, it looked like a little green brick made of paper. Paper with pictures of human faces on them and one number over and over:  **100.**

‘Wait a moment.’

Toriel remembered this: this is what humans used as currency. This was _money,_ and a lot of it at that: the bills were all tightly bound together by rubber bands. Byran placed the brick on the table and brought out another clean stack of money from the bag, and then _another, and_ ** _another…_** He didn’t stop until he had nine of these things laid out in front of him. He flipped through one of the stacks and slipped it into his pocket, the rest were returned to the bag. 

Whatever else was in there, whatever he  _ did…  _ Byran didn’t seem happy with himself. What was once nervous energy and twitching was now somberness. Somberness as he trudged back to his room and slumped into his chair, somber as he separated some of the individual bills of money onto the desk. The way he acted and glanced at the shopping bag over and over… it was like he was ashamed of it. So ashamed that he shoved it underneath his bed and further concealed it with some unused bed sheets, like he wanted to keep it out from his sight and mind. Ultimately that’s what happened with Toriel too… the  _ sight _ part, at least. 

When Byran left the room one more, Toriel did not follow him. It wasn’t anything she’d prefer to avoid, but her morbid curiosity overtook everything. This was unacceptable, she  _ had  _ to know what this was. When Byran came back for it,Toriel would be waiting to get the closest possible look. The insight she so desperately wanted, the  **_answers_ ** inside. She waited for him to come back. Time passed, nothing. She waited some more, all for naught. She couldn’t even be unsure any more as to what kind of time moved through here, she herself wasn’t bound by it, it had no effect on her. It really seemed that Byran would never interact with the thing again, it was disheartening to say the least. Toriel could have occupied herself with the fact she would never know and failed him further in that regard… but there was also the gnawing wonder of what he had been doing all this time.  _ Perhaps something ELSE mysterious that she’ll never get to know, and she missed it because she wanted to stare at his bed.  _

She bolted from the dark cave and back into the-

‘ _ What is this?!’ _

The apartment had gone through some changes while Toriel was occupied. Namely the presence of new and ornate looking furniture while artistic portraits and pretty pictures hung from walls. The kitchen was cluttered once more, but with vibrant and bright looking foods and ingredients. The place looked so much  _ ‘BETTER’  _ than it did before…. Oh wait. There was one small exception to it:  **_all the damn color was gone._ **

‘ _ Great…” _

She thought, when the initial surprise wore off. Great, another nonsensical gimmick to wade through, right? In this world, nothing could ever be consistent or persistent. Toriel had to brace herself for the next round of confusion and potential trauma: she started off by creeping into the living area to look for Byran. 

‘ _ OH!  _ God.’

No need to, Byran found  _ her.  _ He just strolled right into the hallway and through Toriel, she caught a second glimpse at him before his bedroom door shut behind him. 

‘Ohh let me make a guess…” 

She knew turning around and following him would be inappropriate  _ because  _ he walked out of the room just seconds later with another handful of cash. 

‘ _ How  _ did I know that was destined to occur?...’

Sarcasm, she wasn’t really experienced with it but that was a good one. Toriel was already so ‘done’ with this that she didn’t even blame herself for abandoning her original intention. She just had a hunch that this was always going to happen. This  _ was  _ punishment after all. If she was quick at least, she could at least find out what he was  _ doing  _ with this allegedly ‘bad’ money. Toriel stepped into the combined living area and… Byran wasn’t there.  _ However,  _ there was a big and new looking television sitting atop a fancy wooden cabinet complete with a VCR and library of tapes inside their colorful boxes. 

There he was again, like a blur running past her. Byran disappeared into his bedroom and then… everything ‘changed’. It was like a flicker of red had taken everything over for just a fraction of a second… Byran then emerged from his room with  _ more _ money:  _ Two  _ stacks this time. He skittered back to the living room and then- the lone and battered chair turned into a set of three comfortable looking couches complete with a coffee table and reading lamps. 

The young man manifested once again, repeating the same actions. The breath of red lasted a little bit longer before Byran returned with even more money. The dining room shifted this time: what was once a folding table for card games was now a solid resin surface complete with matching cushioned chairs. There was even a set of dinner plates and silverware still sealed in their packaging. 

Then came the next loop: this time the red lasted for multiple seconds and took even more to fade away.  _ This  _ time, Byran walked out with three, maybe even  _ four  _ bundles of money clutched in his grip. Nothing in the apartment really  _ changed  _ though. With all that money, Toriel would have expected the entire place to change. It took her a good moment or two to discover what actually  _ had  _ changed. Byran had a little hook by his front door, it was where he kept his apartment keys and sometimes hung his work apron… actually, Toriel hadn’t seen the apron for quite some time now. Anyway, there was a new set of keys dangling on the hook. There was a little trinket attached to the keyring: some tiny picture of a car encased in clear plastic with the letters ‘ **GMC** ’ overlayed. 

The RED came back, Toriel didn’t even notice Byran entering his bedroom but the color was the telltale sign. This time though… it didn’t subside, the red that washed over everything would not go away. No new furnishing or material possessions would appear, instead it was only Byran slowly trudging from his room. In his hand wasn’t a brick of cash or even more: all he had was a couple of bills and a wadded bunch of empty rubber bands. He stared, that’s  _ all _ he did with this lessened amount of money: Byran stared at it as if it was the only thing in the world that existed to him. His eyes widened, his breaths became audible, the room  _ pulsed  _ with red, becoming an even deeper shade of it. 

A familiar room made so hostile, the comforts of home turned menacing the feeling of being watched  _ bleeding  _ from all the walls. This place was fast turning into the ‘hell-home’, but this time  _ Byran _ inhabited it. The feelings of dread  _ leaped  _ up from every moment he continued being hypnotized by his dwindled money. He looked frightened and beyond  _ lost  _ like he could never fathom what to do next. The RED kept growing and consuming all, all shadows and lines of definition were soon no more than the accursed color. All would be lost, Toriel would have no choice but to withstand the delusion. Yet it was  _ refused.  _ The color halted its progress and began to lose its strength. 

Byran had broken the spell on him and the fixation on him was no more. He found a new resolve in looking at something grasped in his other hand. As the world reverted from its deformation, Toriel could see what the thing that caused this was: paper. It was just another piece of partially crumpled up paper, a piece of paper with rows of numbers written across it. Where every other paper cluttered with numbers only brought Byran frustration and anxiety… this one was nothing like them. There was a sense of comfort emitting from it, the implied hope that started at the red walls, but it wasn’t just that. There was something else to it, something hiding beneath the ink on the yellowed parchment but still detectable… something **_wicked._** As with just about everything else: Toriel had no idea what she was looking at, but she knew something was wrong with it. It wouldn’t matter how many Times toriel impulsively, _vainly_ told him not to indulge in it… he still did.

Byran walked with an impaired speed of motion, as if the entire room had been submerged in water. He made his way to the telephone, he brought the receiver to his ear but the dull tone flooded the room. He held the paper up for his eyes and began building the number he put into the phone. One thing was for sure, he wasn’t calling his Aunt because if he  _ was _ , it would have already been ringing as he could punch her number from memory in less than a second. This number was dialed  _ slowly  _ with unsure glances at the paper for every button he pressed. The last number was entered, a  **six:** and the line went dead silent. 

One ring and the red made a return.

Two rings and the room was already drenched in it.

Three rings and Byran was the only thing that existed anymore.

The  _ fourth  _ ring and somebody picked up. 

The world eagerly waited for the voice to fill it, they were all listening,  **but the sound of juvenile** **_giggling_ ** **took over all sound.**

Byran gasped and lost all focus.

* * *

**T̸̛̛͍̳̩͈͈͍̃̐͗̂͂̂̓̌͗̂̓̕͝͝Ḥ̶̛͖̰͎̇̈́͊̉̈́̄͂̋͐̋͘͘E̷̡̧̺̲̼͚̦͖̣̝͈̙̯̯̬̫̹͉̬̮̩͛̿̓̈́̎͑̆͊̀͊̎͐͒̊̄͋̋͘̚͠͝ͅͅͅ ̵̡̡̧̗͎͇̟̹̪̰͈͓̼͈̗͕͎̫̮͇͎̘̠̱͖̭̮̆̈̅̾̊̇̾̌̅͆̍͊͐̊̄́͜͝͠ͅR̴̡̨͔̻̭͍̦͎͖͙̤̗̭̻̮̙̫̞̘͉̱͇͇̘̔̌̓͛͋͆͜͜͝E̴̫̺̝͕͈̜͌̆̐̏̉̒͒̈́̂̃̆͂̽̈́̈́͑͋͗͊̔̕͝͝͝͝͠D̷̡̛̛̛̲̠̥̫̫̜̞͙̮͉͔͇̯̳̥̮͓̭̙̰͎̣͇͑́͒͊͑͆͌̏̿͌͊̽͌̄̉̌͑͝͝ ̵̛̭͚̋͋͂̄̓͌̒̈́̎̀̋̾̉̆̆̄̈́̍̓͘͘͘͝͝͝͝͝C̸̡̧̰̘̜̤̩̝̦̯͓̠͛͛̓̋̂̿̚ͅÖ̴̧̝͇̖͇̦̫̘́̄̄̔̊̆͊͘̚͘͜N̴̨̢̛̛͔̮̖̗͓̗̲̣̤͇̹̖̫͍̖̖̤̻͎͈͎͎̲̝͊̈́̃̈̄̈͋̾͆̆̇̒̊̔̌̓͐͐̽͘͘͝͝͝͠ͅS̶̮̰̩̼̲͐̅̇̈́̎Ư̸̧̧̮̝̫̬̲̝͎̞̗̹̘̘̜̟̙͔͕̦͉͉̌̍͌͋̽̈̎̎̂̊̈́̓̅̾͘̕͜͜͠͠M̵͓͉̟̹̥͖̳̥̋̆̓̇̊͆Ḙ̴̡̨̛̛̳̫̜͇̮̞͙̤͇̺̺̱́͊̂̈͆̽͗̊͛̊̎̋̅́͠ͅͅD̵̢̡̡̮͇̩̰͓̗̦̲̣̙͔̤̗͈͉̻̪͈͚͓́̀͌̈́̄̄̄̈́͋̿̊͘ ̶̗͕̪̬͔̽̃͛͂̓̽̊͆͋̓͂͌͊͒͝͝A̸̢̧̡̬͔͎͈͇̙̪̟̣̗̙̹̣̖̘̫̻͚̯͋͂̋͊̂̓̓̋̍́͛́̿͘̚̕͜͝͝L̵̨̧̢̲͉̼̦̫͓̭͔̭̤̳̱̦̙͍̗̥̖͚͈̐͜͠L̸̨̛̉͒͒͐̔̿̍̉͑̄̋͊̀͘͠**

  
  
  
  


W̵̲͖̓H̶̰̻̘̟̓Ä̷͈̩́͆̋Ţ̸̞̺͖͇̗͌̔̾̊ ̸̩͍̫̪̋Ḧ̷̢̛̈́͂̓Ả̶̜̾̑̆̇V̶̧̛̹̯̟͎̀̚ͅÊ̶͇͎͈͇͊̎̅͐̓ ̴̗̱̥̻̩̇͋͘ͅÏ̵̯̟̱̘̮͐̚͘͠ ̵͕̻̩̌̉̿D̷̬̥͊̌̇O̶͗ͅN̴̟̮̮͉͇̩͐̅͝Ḛ̸̙̬̦ ̵̧̥̗̬̪̖̈́Ỉ̶̙̫͕͕͕̘͌͑͂͠ ̶͍́̏C̵̢̰̘̙̙͚̏̈̏͠͠Ó̶̦̠̗̫̱̘̉U̴̥̍͊̎L̶̨̯̣̖̇̀̃̉͗̒D̴̰̭͈̎N̸̼̠̹̺̠̙̾̏̓'̵̓̓ͅT̷̡̼̠͂̔̿ͅ ̷̪̌̊̔̏ͅH̷̖̦̤̰͌A̶̢̛͎̭̱̽͆̊̚V̸̢͚͛Ę̴̮͎̪̜̦͛̓̏ ̸̢͓̲̫͛̈̈́́ͅŜ̵̪̙͇̘̺̮̽̾̓̓͠O̶̦̜̒͂̆ ̸̛͉͔̳̺͙͗̈Ḑ̵͔͉̍͗̽̄̒̽Ả̷̛̠̺̪̜̦͆ͅR̶͙̤͖̰͒̇̊̃̑̾K̵͈̺̯̄͜ ̶̡̪̪͚̼͗̔Î̴̳͈̦T̷̢̛̥̠̫̈́́͊̇̚S̸̲͚̣̉̿̿̾ ̸̭͈͗̈́Ä̶͈̹̼̯̝̝̑̃L̵̗̬̟̗̜̍̇̀͆͋L̵͚̭͍̝̑ ̶̡̛͇̟͔̝̏͆͒̕͝O̸̱̍̊V̴̹̝͈̻̭̣̎̾͠E̸͍̪̟̮̔̓̾R̵̝̦̳̺̪͌͂̚ ̸̧̮̯̜̐I̴̯̊̓͂̂̔'̸̛̣̘̫̖͗̿M̵̥̥̩̰̈̍̈́̚͠ ̵̤͉͔̖̐̑Ŝ̶̜̓̕O̸̩̓ͅ ̸̡̭̹̥͉͑̔͜S̶͉̗͓̥̑Ö̵̰̱̲̪͖̈́͗̈R̷̘̻͍̹̭̂̑̾͑R̴̻͈͔͇̞͔̋̎̈̃Y̴̟̓̔̈́̈̐ ̶̺͚̪̍̈́̈́Ī̸̺̮̅͗̇͝ ̴̡̟͕̣̖̀̾̊̍̍D̵̮̕Ȉ̸̗̻̚͜D̸̡̡̯͂N̷̘͍͓͇͚͍̏'̴̰̙̬̬͕̐̀̎̓̀̓T̴͈̓̀̇̚̚ ̷̲̭͊͛͐̉M̶͍̞̻̔̃̽Ḛ̴̮͚̻̝̼̈́À̷̖̰̥͓͙͗̈́N̶̫̦̉̾͐͠ ̷͉̽̅͑Ṱ̸̟̟̋͆̈́̋͠O̵̯̱̰̥͓̔̎̑͌ ̷̛͚̻̘̲̣̾I̷̢̦̒̉̽̐ ̸̢̳͕̜̱͕̐̍̋W̸̧̛̠̥͔̠̓̓̉̓͝A̵̜͕̾͋S̸̮̒̐͜ ̸̫̓͌̅̔̚͝J̶̳͐͌͜Ṳ̴̢͕̪̪̘̈̅͑̆S̵̢̥̥͍̫̆̉ͅT̵̼͕̎͂͘ ̷͙̅͌̕͜T̸͕͎̱̥͖͖̒̂̈́R̵͚̲̭̪̩͒̋Y̷̨͓̔Ĩ̴͈̀Ṉ̸͚̀̓͆̉̆͌G̵̙͎̾͊͌ ̶̛̤͖̲͙͙̩̑T̵̥̩̥͔̝̟̂͑̽̽O̴͕͌̂͝ ̵̣͙͘͝H̵̨͍͉̓̃E̷̯̳͎̒̐͌L̶̛͚̘̯̗̙̽̑́̌̓P̷̘̬̠̆̕ ̴͚̼̙͍̾͆̈́W̷̟̼̗̖̾̇̒̍͐H̵̦̰̩̏̌Ȁ̸͉͎̲̃T̶̥͖͈̂͛̈͘͜͜͜ ̶̢̡̠̻͝ͅH̵͕̺̳̗̆A̸̳̖̯̫̍̇̒̿̎̕V̴̨̧̔̈E̷̯̓̈̋̏̄ ̶͇̃̈̾͘͝Ḭ̵̎ ̸̹̬̲͚̃D̸̩̪̖̜̂̏O̶̻̳͉̔̿͌N̴͈̦͒͂͊͘E̸͑̔̒̋̒̆ͅ ̴͇̜̥̝̈̓̊͗̚Ȉ̷̤̔ ̷͕̥̼̄̐̽̕C̸̨̛̼̲͗͐̐͝͝A̵̫͈̔͝Ň̸̳̝͈̙̖̣̋'̵̛̫̥͕͐͠T̷̡̢̬͖̬̜̆̇́̂̈̆ ̸̧͓͑͐̕T̸̢͉͎̮̳̯͐̒E̶̠̲͍̦̪̍́͜L̶̢̪͚͎͂̉̊̆͝ͅL̴̝̒͊̂̐͑ ̵̢̙̈́̔̌̔͠W̴̼̰̅̉̍̚͝Ȟ̶̼̹͇͇̹̓̑͆Ạ̸̮̼̘͉̳̇͋͛̇͆͘T̶̯̉̋̈̀̃ ̴̺̹̮̜̑͒̅Ī̸̤͉S̶̪̗̰̊͊͛͑ ̵̹̖̤͉͍͂̓R̸̡̤̈́͠E̶̢̙̺̘̟̍͜Ă̷̡̢̛̖̳͚̑̈́̓͊͜L̷̻̤̬̬̣̽ ̴̛̱͜T̶̡̟̥̜̲̏̌̀H̷͈͋̑̇̒̚Ǐ̷͚̼̈̑S̶̺̼͆͗ ̷̼͈͖͔̦͈̿̓̌̆͝Ĭ̴̖̔̉̓̃͆S̸͙̭̤̫͍̕ ̶̟̻̬̣̠͑̊J̴̻̰̯͔̻͒̿̄͂͝U̶̪͌͛̃͊S̴̹̏͛́T̵͉̀͋͊̈́̈́ ̵̭͙̖͇̜̅̂À̴̛͓͉̺̣̱͓̆̏ ̸̟͗͑͜ N̶͚̟̱̐̄I̶̛̺G̷̙̺͔̼̬̉̅͜͠Ȟ̷͙̙͋͛͐̽T̸̼̬̋̔̾̌̑M̴͍̦̻̳̓A̴̘̹̺͎͛̿R̷̡̫̬̰̀̽̀̂̈́͊E̷̡̽̅͗ ̴̗̪̏͠Í̶̘͚͖͛̿̊̍͘ ̸̭̥̳̻̔͊̎̒̍͑͜C̴̻̝̘͔̕ͅŌ̸̢̺͙̗̳͌̚Ư̸̘͙͒̈́̏L̵̡͊̈́̿͜D̴͕̱̱̪͋͗̒͛N̴̞̹̙̭̎̈́'̴̼͎̳͖͇̼̈T̸̢̫̱̞̬͑ ̵̺̫͌͊̓̈́̓H̴̻̲̰̊̋̅͜͝Á̴͓͎̳̿̀͗͠V̷̨̾E̶̘̯͂̆͝ ̵̘͔̊̅̂D̶̛̯̩̑O̶̖̖͎̞̞̓̌͗̕͘N̵̺̤̪̜̲̗̐̆̑E̴̲͐̿̏̀̉ ̵̘̥́̆̾͝Į̴̘̤͆͜͝T̴̢̘̹̭͈̹̈́͋͘ ̴̬̟̙̣̖͒̐̃͝W̷̢̛̺̞̞͐̽͝Ḫ̷̫̬̀͋̈́̽̈́̈́Y̷̝͈̠̽̆̓̚̚͝ ̶͙̝̓H̶̛̜̘͓̲͖̚Ä̷̳̳͖̮̱̗̂͐V̷̞̻͎͍͖̂ͅE̴̛̹̞̙͓͑̄͠ ̴̞͖̻̪͛͒͘͝Ḯ̶̮̺̯̆ ̸̘̜͇̰͎̓͐͠D̸̺̊̿O̸̧͉͂̈̓̑N̶̲̳̼̾Ę̴̢̮̥̻̋̈́̑̎̃ ̶͙̼̟̗̙̞̐̂̒̊̂͝Ţ̵͔̯͔̙͙̆͌͊̍͌̀H̶̺̹͎̰̩̓͛͗̌Ḯ̵͉̻̫̈́S̷͍̀͊̍ ̷̮̘͗̅̚͠ͅẀ̴̖̞̳̰̲̰̓H̵̭͈͊̎̂A̵̧̩̓̉T̵̛͕̻̾͋̉̏̕ ̴̙̝͇͊͆͝Į̶̭̪͒͆͜S̷̳̯̜̫̻̈́̄̕ ̷̨̮̓͂̊̋͌̈́H̷̲̮̱̙̖̿A̶̛̳̓̅͆̚P̷̝̓͛͐͘P̸͖͙͋E̴̟̻̥̰̠̤͌N̸̺͓̣̩͖͆͘Į̸̥̩̮͙̈́Ņ̶̠̪̱̟͕͊̓G̸̨͖̲̩̟̈́̂ ̸͙̺̈́̈́̍I̷͉̹̟͓̓̅͋ͅS̸̗̒̔͑̀́ ̷̧͈̠̹́̂̋̂̾͜Ț̴̲̉͊̆͛́H̷͙̫̼͗̐̓Į̶̥̱͂̈́͜͜͝S̸̝̳͊̿͐ ̷̲̤͉̅͘ͅR̶̟̬̰̣̮̓͒̔̅͘Ē̶̻͑A̷̢̛̒̈́͗̂̕L̸̥̣̻̬̄́̓?̴̡̧̡̛̺̲̼̿̔̍͆̓ ̶̺͚̑͊͗͝W̷̫͓̑͠H̴̭̼̗̦̾̄͐̈ͅÃ̶̟̤̈̅̽̚͝Ṭ̷̡̛͙̯̇͜͝͠ͅ ̸̡̳̫̮̖̂͝H̸̢̻͕̰͂̒͜͝À̴̞͓̖̱̄̉͘͜͝V̷͈͈̔E̷̺̲̣͙̿ ̷̨͔͉͔̌̌I̶͕̺̗̜̽͌͒͂̊ ̸͈̌Ḏ̴͌́O̸̟̣̯̾N̸̡̞̮͌̾͝E̸͖͂̌̏̋̄  **̸̦̭̼̖̺̈́͆̋̈͠H̸̤̕Ë̸̢͔͙̭͎́̆̌̉̾͌Ĺ̶̠̕͝P̴̲̻͙̽** ̵̪̒̅͘͝ͅM̶̧̛̜̼̦̗̄̾̑̑͐E̸͍͔͛͜ͅ ̶̖͓̾͌̆̂̕͝Ĝ̶̹͌̕Ơ̸̲͔͚̙̤͚̆̄Ḋ̷̠̈̎ͅ ̵̫͊͂́͊͋H̷̤̐̅̀͑̋͝ͅĘ̶͙̱̩̗̣̔͒̈́̋̑͠L̵̞̽P̸̺̹̗̥̓̑̇̐ ̸̖̍M̷̫̖̏͂E̴̠͇̦̮̮̲̔̂̈́͘̕͝ ̶̙̼͇̿͐̈̾͋͝I̴̩̱̝̐ ̸̞͔̉̈́̾C̴̩͍̻̞̮͊̑̈́͊Ạ̸̧̺̙̠̰̐̀̈́̊͒N̸̠͈̈́͒̆̄̕'̸̻̼̣͈̻͛̒͐͝T̵̜̤͌̍ ̷̗̜̦͂͋̅͊̕Ş̴͚̹̖̳̇ͅḚ̸̓͌̓Ë̵̟͉̪͓̈̈͋͂ ̷̧̐A̶̧̛̝̎̍͂N̵̝͖̝͐͑̐̐͂Y̵̜̜̣͇͒͜M̶̙͙̻̥̦̗̾̃̇̎O̸̙̱̝̔͑̆̎͝R̶̟̽̒͘Ë̸̥̳́ ̶͕̪̾̌͂̕͠W̴̗̻̒̇̈́̚͘H̸̡̧̛̞̩̼͉Ǎ̵͔͇͈̯̎̀̎͜͜T̶̛̲̰͕̜͆̏̌͂͜ ̸̢̛͍͎̏̆̀̔H̴̦͓̹̥̠̖̿̈́̕͘À̴̛̹̟͍̻V̵͍̄Ẹ̷̝̯̪̀̃͗͝ ̵̨̼̮͂Ĩ̵̤͓͍̞͍̊̐̂͜͝ ̷̨̡̪͕̭̖̆̽͆Ḑ̸̠̺͙̈́̐̎̋͜͝O̴̖͋͆̋̕͝͝N̵̜̜̠͋̆̓̈Ê̵̛̙̥̐ ̴̺̻̏͂̋͌́Ĭ̵͍͔͉̖̺̅͌͝ͅ ̸̡̗̺̹͓̐J̶͔̯̼̫̜͗͘U̵̡̼͙̿̓̽̈́̈́S̷̢͙̗͎̎͆T̶̺͇͔͔͂̎̑̍̌͂ ̸̟͕̓͌̆W̸̹̓Ã̵̬͕͙͓̩͜N̶̙̜͚͊̈̍T̶̪̹̉E̶̡̡̪̠̯͈̓̐̀͒Ḑ̸͊ ̵̨̞̯͎͛̓ͅṰ̸͕̍́͘O̸̺̘̩͕̫͛̒ ̴̖͕̠̦̙̋͐̋̈́̂̚ **H̸͖͓̿̈͋͘̕͜͝Ȩ̸̜̝͕͖̓̓̇Ľ̵̨̺̰̖̊̏͆̂̚P̴̨̖̣̽͛̉͘ͅ** ̶̛̻͈̅̈́̇W̴̖͍̄̍͝ͅH̵͍̥̜̓̇͒͝Ȁ̴͖T̵̮͓͆̈ ̸̧̛̩̼͊̎H̸͎͆̐͌ͅA̶͖̤͆̀͒V̴̘̿͘E̸̗̰͕͕̪͂̃ ̷͔̞͔̮̙̈́̋̒Ǐ̷̧̻͉͉̗̝ ̶̧̧̛͇̗̝̏̾͠D̶̛̲̍̋͐Ȍ̵̳͖̰͙̋͛̂N̵̜̳̏̇́̿E̶̛̥̞͎̓̎̌͑͝ ̶̭̱̮̬̈́̔̾̀͜ͅĮ̴͍̫͔̅̓̕ ̵̡̱̹́̉́̽̒͝J̴̥̭͈̙̈́̎͝U̷̢̮͚͎̝̒S̵̪̗͕̣͉̅̈́͌T̵̨̘̠͚͔̘̾͑ ̵̣̣̟̞͈͋W̴̞̟̣̞̭̋À̴̠͈̤̠̫̀͂͊̽N̸̢͈̟̮͉͐͋͜T̵̨͓̭̰̬̍E̸̻͎͌̿̓̊͑ͅD̶̨̘͆ ̶̨͚͇̺͐͐Ț̶̪̜͙͓͉͋͠O̶̼͉̿ ̷̡̤̞͎͇̯͌̒̇͗̕Ḩ̷̮̙͈̙̩̔̒̍E̵͎̻̻̹̋͒L̷̹̩̣̘̥̤͊̿̑͗̽̈P̸̨̧̩̻̠̖̓̂͐̚ ̵̳̉̑̇Ẁ̵̢̧̽̀H̸̦͔͔̰͈̄̿͘A̸̯͈̻̣̻̲̋͌͝T̷͚̥̈ ̴̗̥̞̻͒̽̈́H̸͎̮̻̼̆̎̚͜͝A̴͉̰̙̳̩̓̎̂͛͌V̸̧̲͇̣̭͐̇Ė̷̡̢͙̜̄͐͌̅ ̵̤̝͓͖͎̑͋̎͒̏͗I̶̫̫̲̱͂́̽̕ ̷̪͋͆̓̑ͅD̶̚ͅO̴̦͉͍͌Ṇ̶̡̘͑̀̃͂Ẻ̸̯̼̠͛̔͠͠ ̶̢̛̬̬͓̑͝I̷̮̔͒̏ ̵̟͈̎̌͌͝ͅJ̵̪̩̣̼̒̐̎̔͘Ǘ̷̡̝̝̳͛̕ͅȘ̶̺͌̄̍̌Ț̸̣͙̍ ̶̘̳̭̣͇͔̈̈̿W̸̲̤Ả̶͎͉̫̭̺N̸̢̦̰̝̈́̋̆͑̾̕ͅT̸̺͗E̶͇̺̭͈̼̐̽̊̌̓͋D̸̨̖͔̀ ̵̢̗̻͈̐̓͘T̶͕̺̞̈́͝O̵̢̲̖̔̄͘͝ ̷̹̀̈́̎͐̚Ḧ̴͇̥͉͂̈͑̇͝Ẹ̸͓̄̐̆͋̅L̵̢̳̺̈̇͒̏P̸̥̬̜̲̥̘̅̾̅ ̷̩̖̂̌̈́͝ͅW̷͚̅̃͆Ȟ̵̘̪̳̘̓Ą̷͍̓T̵̨̹͖̳͉̠͛ ̸̧̳̱̊H̷̫͔̿̃Å̷̗̪̯̇̈́̚V̶̨̭̱̻̆̅͝E̶̡͓͚͌̄͂͐̐͘ ̷̘̼͇̼͇͛̈̃͜I̶̯̚ ̷̛͎̉D̵̢̪͖͍̳͉̀̒Ơ̸̞̘͎̟̏̎̍͝Ṇ̸̗͕̅̌̏͝Ȩ̴̨̮̭̺̂̈́̔̈́̉ ̸͚̈́̂͊̋͝I̷̳̱̔̇͊̆̑͝ ̷̛̱̫̙̈͊͝J̴͔̼̄͐͌Ǔ̵̼̈́͌͘S̵̛̭̮̒̓̊̚ͅT̸͚̬̈́̅̚ ̷̳̏̏W̴̢͎̹̙̌͠A̸͈̪̓͒͂̌N̶̡̡̖̩̥̰̄̓T̵̢͚̘̩͖̚E̸̠͚̹͋̈́̾D̷͉̙̟͔̀̈́̍͗̏̅ͅ ̶̧̞͚͂̏̋̌ͅT̵̢͎̥͙̽̈́Ȍ̶̟̘͘͘ **̵̦̪̮̅̿͆̇H̴̲͇̩̦͚̠̄̄̂̓̎Ḛ̵͇̍̋L̴̛͚̂͛͌͌́P̶̞̮̼̂͂̋̄͌** ̸̨͙͠W̸̬̹̦̭̏̿̿H̵̨̤̮͈̆͂̋Ă̵̯͉͕̯̩̒͘̚T̷̠͕̬̥̆ ̵̛̼͝H̴̖͔̓A̸̢̩̱̠̦̠̽̽̒̾͠Ṿ̸̲͍͍̣̟̾̃̚E̶̹͇̹̬̦̎ ̸̖̱̟̖̏̑̋̊I̴̫̮͙̳͍̓̅͝ ̷͖̻̝̌D̷̮̾͋͒͘O̷͉͎͓̍̇̏̚͘N̵̖̺̗̯͌Ě̷̙̹̗̯

**_It’s so DARK, I can’t SEE anything. I can HEAR them, they’re EVERYWHERE. They HATE me, I can hear them SCREAMING, JEERING. They’re HITTING me, it HURTS: why won’t they STOP them? They’re holding my ARMS, they’re holding my LEGS: I don’t want to GO. They’re making me MOVE. I can’t YELL I can’t SCREAM._ **

  
  


He couldn’t get up, he couldn’t move: every part of him had been bound to where he was sitting. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t BREATHE, he couldn't talk, he could only hear them all  **_SHOUTING._ ** There were so many voices, they were all angry and full of HATE. The sirens were already there, they screamed their wicked chorus. There was ONE voice that boomed above the others, the last thing he ever heard.

**_“ROLL IT.”_ **

The peak of all things horrible: the epicenter of sentient terror. Toriel felt a sense of pain so unexpected, so exquisite. It did her in, the talons of death had her back: before she knew it,  **everything went black.**


	8. 07

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lets pick up where we left off...

Black. Nothing but  **cold.** The ringing had long stopped, for it had all concluded. Yet from the threshold of oblivion, something emerged. He had called for help and somebody came, the concrete carried the sounds of their footsteps all around the empty space. 

A voice he had never heard before, an unfamiliar presence approached.

“Byran?”

Byran’s voice could be heard too, a low monotonous drone that barely echoed.

“What do you want?”

“To meet you, actually… We spoke on the phone, arranged this get together here?”

“Alright, yes. I’m just making sure, I wanna be careful.”

“Oh yeah, no problem! I wouldn’t have asked ya to stroll into an abandoned park’n gaerge if I didn’t understand ‘careful’. N’body in their right mind’ll wanna come here at five in the morning besides me n you.” 

“Nice…”

Byran sounded cold and apathetic, but still with respect. His company was openly friendly, it gave off all the wrong and unsettling feelings.

“If I can start by bein honest with ya? I didn’t see myself  _ doin _ this on my monday… but it’s not everyday you get a call from a strange number, hear a stranger's voice, askin about the  _ ‘Sub-Enterprise’  _ and i uhh- this was a bit ‘unexpected’ enough that I decided to go with it.”

“Well, sorry if I’ve bothered you any, you were the only contact who wasn’t a dead number and, if  _ i’m  _ being honest: actually going to this seedhole part of the city right where you want me? No way in hell would I ever do that, but I’ll admit I was feeling a little desperate to reach  _ someone _ .” 

“Huhmm, I  _ see…  _ Well’mm. I can’t say I’d be  _ surprised _ lot of those numbers don’t work. The Enterprise hasn’t been active in over ten years, I don’t think anybody expected it to make a comeback… it’s basically  _ dead.” _

There was some despondency, a soft elevation to feelings of despair.

“Nooo… don’t tell me  _ that.  _ Oh  _ no…  _ **_How?_ ** When did this happen?”

Discomfort finally settled into the other voice.

“Haaa jeez- This is the first time I’ve ever had to discuss it with someone. We _all_ had a vital part in keepin the operation _goin,_ y’know? But Mr **_Rantz…_** Someone doesn’t show up or they get compromised? Our work got a lot harder and riskier but when _Baitren_ went down? We were all out of a _job,_ it was as plain and simple as that. _Maybe_ if we all stuck together, we coulda worked something _oouuut._ **_But…_** After what happened to him? We all got spooked, y’know? What if this could happen to _us_ next? If they got _him,_ then _nobody_ was safe.”

Hearing that name was like a bad omen, Byran had heard it so many times by some shark grinned suit sitting behind a table. He hated to admit it made him flinch just by hearing it, but a  _ lot  _ of things made him flinch now. The other voice continued.

“We decided to call it then and there, for _our sakes._ It was over. We disbanded: cut off from each other, spread out, and buried our tracks. You’d imagine their numbers would be the first thing they toss, some of them up and packed what they could carry and left their lives behind… changin their names and some even leaving the _country._ So you call those numbers, you’re dialing people who don’t exist anymore. I don’t wanna say either, but I think it’s likely that a few of them **literally** don’t exist anymore. I wouldn’t know though.” 

Byran sighed for so long, it was like all the life was leaving his body. His words had even less energy in them. 

“That's. Not what I wanted to find out… (Ohhh god…) W-w-ww…”

He stammered and vocally malfunctioned for a little bit before he seemingly put it all away and turned off his emotions.

“What’s the story on you, then? Why are  _ you  _ still here to tell me about this?”

“Me?  _ I dunno.  _ I didn’t really feel like I  _ had _ to uproot myself and go through all that hassle, the stuff I did never really put me up in the barrel like everyone else. I know it sounds really boneheaded and just  _ askin _ to be barged in by the feds but…  _ here I am _ still after ten years. Besides bein in the know of everyone who basically fell offa the  _ earth, _ I didn’t really leave any traces. I could just forget about everything and find another way to put food on my table.”

“What did you  _ do?” _

“Oh, I was the ‘Director’ Not like a  _ movie  _ director but more like the guy who ‘directs’ clients. I set up the locations and times where we’d meet and do business. The shady looking guy you’d meet in that alleyway who hands you a piece of paper with a place and date on it? Most likely me… you though: I feel like I’ve heard your voice before, but you look so  _ young.” _

“No, we’ve never met before. I’d be nine years old at the latest if we did back then.”

“Wow for real? You’re like a  _ kid _ still! I don’t understand then, how do you know about this? How did you get a hold of me in the first place?”

“Your number was on a list my father left for me, of people I could trust.”

“Your father? Who?” 

“Baitren Rantz.” 

The conversation underwent a complete conversion. It started with the other man adopting a juvenile-like curious tone. 

“ **_Baitren??_ ** Whoa- wait. You’re  **_Baitren’s_ ** boy??”

“Yep… Byran Rantz.”

“ _ Duuude- GIH. _ No _.  _ Waaaay!  _ Wow!  _ I can’t believe it, I’m actually talkin to his freak’n  _ son!  _ Woww, just- I  _ know  _ you!  **Wha-** I mean I don’t  _ actually _ know you like I- I saw about you in the  _ news!  _ I thought they locked you up??”

Plainly, bluntly with no hard feelings.

“They did.”

“And you freaking wormed your way  **_out??_ ** _ Yooooo!  _ I guess you  _ are  _ Baitren’s boy, apple didn’t fall too far from the  _ tree _ , Haha! How’ve you been doin for yourself then? Lookin to give me my old job back? HA!”

He  _ was _ joking, but Byran seemed to take it seriously.

  
  


“What?  _ Noo- _ nono no. I didn’t  _ break out.  _ I was  _ released…  _ mostly and I’m not doing anything like that! I’m living a ‘normal’ life and not doing anything illegal!”

  
  


The exuberance faded from his company.

“Oh…-”

The excitement didn’t though. 

“- Then what the _ hell _ are ya doin talkin to someone like me for, ya  _ dummy!?” _

“ **I need to make money.”**

No more animation, there was nothing in the air but dread. She knew this, Toriel could understand this… She just wasn’t all there yet. Byran’s company wasn’t all humored anymore.

“Well, we  _ all _ do. But I don’t know what to tell you, bud… I don’t got anything for ya, I haven’t had anything for  _ anyone  _ really since I worked for your old  _ man. _ I’m real sorry about that by the way, I know it’s really late and out of place but yeah… Sorry about your dad.” 

Such a drow sounding mutter, miserable to the end.

“It’s alright… thanks for taking me seriously at least. I don’t know what I’m gonna do now, but-”

It seemed his ‘guest’ didn’t get the memo that he was done here. Either that, or he just couldn’t help but finish what he was thinking.

“ _ Besides  _ though, I’m not the guy that can give you action… even when I wasn’t a small time hustler like now, I didn’t actually bring the goods in.  _ Nobody  _ did.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was your  _ father, _ he was the one that got  _ a hold _ of everything. He got his hands on the stuff, we just helped him make a  _ business _ about it…  _ soo _ unless you got a warehouse full of government prop-ty on you, ain’t much I’d be able to do for ya.”

…

“ **What if I do?”**

* * *

Suddenly a thunderous slam boomed through a massive chamber, and then there Toriel was as abrupty as the sound that echoed. Where she was was still dark as the nothingness she wasn’t confined to anymore, but the footsteps still carried to her. Like always, there was no time to comprehend what just happened: all she could think of was how the acoustics in here reminded her of being trapped underground. Could that be where she was?

Suddenly(again), light! The all consuming darkness was executed by a thrown switch, it only made the disorientation around her worse. Of any of her senses that worked again, only one could help her out at a time. There was more talking coming from somewhere in this spacious confined world.

“Well there’s still  _ power,  _ that’s good I think.”

-“And you’ve never checked this place  _ out  _ before?”

“I didn’t even know this place  _ existed _ until last week…  _ eugh.  _ From the dust paint job here, I’m gonna say nobody else knows about this place either.”

-“I sure as hell didn’t.”

“Really? Why?” 

-“Mmnh-mnh- _ mmnn ( _ I  _ dunnoh…)  _ It wasn’t my  _ job  _ to know I  _ guess.” _

Everything prior to the consuming void was a blur but the one thing Toriel knew was Byran and that other man’s voice. They sounded far even though they were inside… this couldn’t have been the underground: there simply wasn’t any monstermade building this big… also for the fact Byran and this man were here, that was probably the better conclusion to find. Where was this, then? What was this?

The two humans’ conversation continued without her, it wasn’t distinguishable any more because Toriel moved onto solely perceiving what she could  _ see.  _ Everything was still so  _ blurry,  _ the hideous yellow lighting from the huge metal lamps in the ceiling certainly wasn’t helping and Toriel didn’t have to count the  _ buzzing _ sounds they made. This was not a very suitable place for coming back into a state of false and vicarious existence after experiencing a sensation that could only be summarized as  **_dying…_ ** again. 

The dysphoria wasn’t subsiding any time soon, Toriel felt like she was sinking into this tomb of sights and sounds. Being able to walk again only led her to stumble, she bumped into something hard. Just when her eyes truly served her, she would wish she was still blind. A shelf made of metal halted her stumbles but her presence did nothing to disrupt what was ‘sleeping’ on the cold surface.  _ The black skin, those intricate curves and edges, the big handle on top…  _ There was no mistaking it: she saw it  _ once _ , she saw it a hundred times. She became  **_INTIMATE with it-_ **

_ Hellfire burned through all the stained glass windows, the symphony of agonized screams returned fortissimo. The weapons BURST and CRACKLED from down the hall, Toriel kicked the closest soldier to the blood stained floor and pressed the barrel of the rifle into his open  _ **_throat._ ** _ Their M16’s burned through everything they had, but HERS was the only one that actually  _ **_KILLED_ ** _ anyone. _

_ ‘ _ **_NO!’_ **

Toriel blenched back with a yell, away from the hell and away from the  **GUN.** Far away, keep going: she could never get far enough away from that gun but she certainly had to try. She backed away as the vision tried to chase after her, stepping back while the thing forced those haunting images into the deepest recesses of her corrupted mind. Her movements were halted once again as her back collided with an equally unforgiving structure. When she turned around impulsively, a dozen more M16’s were there to greet her. 

_ Just as they did in the hands of all those people she slew in that hall, how they all clattered to the FLOOR before the bodies went  _ **_SPLAT_ ** _ against it.  _

Another scream turning into a blat came out of her. Toriel ran down the inherent aisle to evade the evil dreams seeping out of the weapons… it was a futile effort. Everywhere she turned for sanctuary just held more guns. The shelves were as wide as the entire room, they stretched up to the ceiling: every last space on every last surface was covered with guns of different sizes and shapes. Her horrified screams were only the twirling flag that started this scenario, the warehouse full of steel malice would resonate with a different set of yells and screams. 

“ _ Hooo  _ my  **_GOD!”_ **

In the peripheral plane of her abject terror, Toriel would see someone coming her way… The man was skipping and spinning around with his arms outstretched. He sounded like a child in a toy store, he was so giddy. The guns had the complete opposite effect on him, seeing them just made him giggle and shout again.

“ _WHOOOoooh!_ _Look_ at this place! Look at all this STUFF! I’m actually standing in Mr Rantz’s freak’n _warehouse?_ HA-HA-HAAAAaaaah!” 

Here came Byran, he didn’t seem the least bit excited nor giddy. He just strolled behind, making wide eye glances at the massive stockpile of weapons while making the quietest of murmurs. 

“Holy  _ shit…”  _

His ‘friend’ had his fun with all the wares and he turned back to Byran.

“Buddy,  _ YOU.  _ Just made my  _ day!  _ I mean just- I just never thought I’d  _ see  _ this many smuggled weapons. Let alone in my entire  _ life,  _ much less in the same ROOM! And they’ve been untouched as he  _ left _ em- so the gov’ment prolly doesn’t even  _ miss _ em! I just- You… I can’t-”

Byran leaned on the edge of being confused and a little bit intimidated.

“Uhhh, is that a  _ good _ thing?” 

Immediate sarcasm came his way.

“ ‘ _ Is that a good thing?’ IS  _ that a GOOD thing?”

Byran’s company shook his hands and his head too, he was trying some kind of body language but his excitement kind of misconstrued the message. He found a way to keep it all underneath the hood, but his voice got louder when he finally got to his point.

“We just won the fuck’n  _ LOTTERY!  _ Are ya  _ kidd’n  _ with me?! Just- Your father left you the  _ keys to the KINGDOM!  _ We’re standing in his  **castle!** I’m s’prised there ain’t  _ dragons  _ in here sitting on all this GOLD!”

He seemed to break away from Byran to go onto a tangent about what was filling this place.

“You got; Rifles, shotguns,  _ Machine-Guns, Sniper  _ Rifles-”

Byran seemed content to stare at everything with that still intimidated look on his face. That ‘lost’ look was coming back too, this place seemed all kinds of daunting for him. 

“-Maga _ zines,  _ loaders, ammo belts, I think I even see some  _ detonators??? _ ”

They converged once again, the man grabbed Byran by his shoulders: he didn’t relent at the inevitable flich that ran through Byran’s body. The guy just held him face to face with a big smile on his face.

“Do you know what this  _ means _ , man??” 

Byran’s eyes were at full mast, he just shook his head quickly with an influx of nervous energy.

“ _ No!  _ I don’t!”

“It  _ MEANS?-” _

Byran was let go, but an outstretched hand remained in his space. 

“-We’re in  _ business _ , baby.” 

Toriel watched the entire scene, now it emphasized on Byran’s hesitation to complete the handshake. In the eyes of his ‘to-be’ partner, were promises of prosperity and assurance: a feeling of familiarity. In Byran, she would see a world of building questions and avalanching doubts. He was stockstill, the incomplete handshake persisted too… had this memory halted like all the others? It couldn’t have, it shouldn’t have! Toriel wanted to get far away from this place, with a newfound fear greater than her feelings towards the red hell. She became more restless though, to the lack of knowing what happened next. 

_ Then came the RED. _

It seeped through the cracks in the walls, it flowed through the drains in the floor. It touched not the armaments, for it respected them: they had a part in its creation. Toriel had only dread for the color… she knew what was going to happen next. 

_ Then came the childish giggles, they danced through the space and were louder than ever. Could they HEAR them? Could they exist behind all the NOTHING?  _

It had almost reached Byran, there would be no avoiding it. Toriel had no way of preparing for the next part, she just had to TAKE it. The RED reached his foot and then- Byran moved. 

With the urgency of a decisive move, Byran clapped his hand into the outstretched one. The sound it made was as loud as a gun, the impact would be so much more… As they shook on it, the RED retreated immediately: it had NO place here. What would come out of this handshake, would be so much more than it could ever handle. 

Their hands separated, the other man croaked from behind his tight grin.

“ _ Beautiful.  _ Glad to be back,  _ Mr Rantz.”  _

Byran grinned involuntarily, nervously.

“A- _ heh. _ That belongs to my father- Byran is fine for me but uh- good to be working with you? Misterrr-”

“Charles. Charles Rhattener at your service.”


	9. 08

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wear the chain I forged in life-  
> -I made it link by link and yard by yard; I girded it out of my own free-will, and of my own free-will I wore it.  
> Is its pattern strange to you?"
> 
> -Jacob Marley

It had been a long time since Toriel saw this place, she didn’t recognize it immediately either. It didn’t appear the same without Baitren yelling at his son or that she-beast lurking somewhere within the dark corridors, no evil red or flashing lights and certainly no assault and gratuitous violence. For a moment, it was like she was standing in the foyer of a completely unknown place. There was no misidentifying it though, Toriel found herself standing inside Byran’s childhood ‘home’ and was alone with no company except all the bad memories that lingered.

Nothing was really happening though. Toriel would have taken the time to herself to try to explore to some degree, but she couldn’t really see anything. The entire house was merely a shade above pitch black with only the foyer being made visible by snippets of light coming through the windows. They had been boarded up but the daylight found its way through the creases and cracks in the wood, the dust danced and fluttered inside of the beams. It was silent with the exception of insects chirping outside. This was unsettling, of all the places to return to…and if it wasn’t being openly traumatizing, it was being utterly creepy. 

Footsteps started from behind the front door, they stopped and the jangling took over. Somebody was fumbling with a bunch of keys, 

“Byran?”

That was all she could really think of or somewhat  _ hope _ for. The locks and tumblers clicked and the whole house carried the noise. The door creaked open, there was much more light as the outside world poured inside and… It  _ was _ just Byran. He didn’t look any older or younger either which meant this was still somewhat cohesive with going forward… so that was good, right? He just sniffed and stepped inside, closing the door behind him and blocking out the falling dusk of the orange sky. One peculiar thing Toriel noticed about him before he became as dark as everything else in here was the familiar garment he was wearing. Byran was wearing his father’s old service jacket, Toriel could read the ‘Rantz’ on the one side before Byran shut the door. 

Byran wasn’t all for sitting in the gloomy dimness for long because he flicked on a torch and shared its illumination with the rest of the room. It was nice actually having a source of light that wasn’t dingy yellow or buzzed incessantly. Toriel could have relaxed just a little bit… but then she, Byran, and the flashlight all found something. 

This place had seen  _ far  _ far better days, dust had coated everything in a perfect sheet that stuck to every surface like glue. Not minding the dust, the place was filthy, the surfaces were darkened by layers of dirt and sediment: only disturbed by muddy shoe prints and finger smudges on the walls… except for one place: the living room. Of the brown and stained black tiled floors, a large portion of them looked like they had been  _ bleached.  _ Introduced to some potent chemical and then scrubbed in relentlessly, with such strength that no color could return to the affected spots. It was even like this on some of the walls. What pinnacle of mess could warrant intervention like  _ that?  _ In such inconsistent patterns too, this bleaching looked like it had been splattered all over the walls and floor. The strange thing was that it did nothing for all the little round  **_holes_ ** in the wall...

Give it a second…

‘Oh  _ god.’  _

Blood  _ was  _ among one of the harder things to clean up, Toriel had vague experience with it. Where she had her techniques, humans had used chemicals to clean up the crime scene. She didn’t want to see it all happen again, but that really wasn’t at her discretion. The anti-stains in the floor had identities to them… the splatters on the wall- the young scream boomed through the house once more and shook her to her core. She saw the small shape being knocked from his stance and collapsing into the wall, he just slid down and crumpled over…

Toriel was about ready to collapse into herself again for another wailing fit, but she wanted to see how Byran was going to react to this… she really didn’t actually, anticipating it was going to be painful to watch. 

“Hmn.”

That was all he had to say, Byran made the most casual sounding grunt and stepped over the horrendous past. He walked to the one couch that was covered in a clear tarp and reached over to the other tarp covering the window. Byran would remove the impromptu curtains from all the windows in the front of the house, succumbing to a couple of coughs as the dust swarmed in the already stale air. Honestly, Toriel would have preferred Byran left this place in the dark: the light only uncovered the horrible state of the house. The carpeting had been ripped up, the drywall had cracked and crumbled in many places, basically all of the furniture had been knocked over or dismantled with the remains feasted on by moths. The mess was one thing, but seeing this done to a piece of Byrans eviscerated childhood… it was bad. Byran though, he really didn’t seem all that  _ bothered _ with anything. Well no, he took some offence to the cobwebs constructed everywhere, but that was about it. 

When he was done, Byran had brought a little life back to the front area of this decrepit place. He clapped some of the dust from his hands and brushed more from his hair before deciding to go upstairs. The way the wood exposed from the torn up carpeting creaked as he proceeded did not suggest good building integrity. He wouldn’t test the reliability of the handrails though because of the splinters and the cobwebs… mostly the cobwebs. ‘Eugh’ though, the carpeting upstairs crackled underneath his feet. Byran didn’t seem interested in the master bedroom at the head of the stairs, the double doors were left closed and strangely bound together by packing tape. He would make a u-turn and walk the open hallway lined by the stair banister, right to the end with three more doors: one dead ahead and one on either side. For Toriel, this was uncharted territory, she had never seen any of the rooms up here. The farthest her knowledge had gotten her was that the double doors must have lead to the parents’ bedroom, from that time the red nailed harpy retreated to them. Byran took the door facing the master bedroom and gave the knob a rattle and a bit of a forceful push to get the thing open. 

Inside the room it was more of the same: dark, dusty and musty. It was just more cramped, in fact it looked less like what used to be someone’s  _ bedroom  _ and more of a storage room: what with all the boxes of indiscriminate junk. Nothing really clicked to Toriel about this room until Byran navigated his way through the sea of stuff on the floor and delved deeper. He looked around some with his flashlight and settled down at the sight of this raggedy looking stuffed rabbit doll sitting atop a ruined looking bed made for a small child. Byran lit up a little and fondly exclaimed.

“Ah, there you are. I was looking for you, y’know that?” 

He saved the thing from a precarious pile of stuff on the ruined mattress and gently brushed some of the dust from its big soft ears. It wasn’t until Byran carefully tucked the doll into his inner coat pocket and even gave it an affectionate pat that Toriel got the thought in her head.

‘This was his  _ bedroom…’ _

If she could even  _ call  _ it a bedroom… there was a  _ bed  _ and that could’ve been a dresser off in the corner underneath all those wrinkled clothes. This room probably wouldn’t have looked any better without the disrepair and neglect-

‘Neglect?  _ Neglect!?  _ Neglect is far from  _ suitable  _ for this! I can not  _ believe  _ what I am  _ seeing!  _ His unjust imprisonment was kinder to him!’

She could understand and point a claw at  _ Marge…  _ but Baitren, Toriel thought better of him. He wasn’t a good father at all, but she thought he at least  _ tried.  _ Seeing this room and how he must have allowed it was just a blow to someplace tender and aching to her. Toriel only wondered what his sister’s room looked like or what the  _ third _ door would hold. 

‘If I ever had the sordid opportunity to  _ meet _ these people, I swear-’

While Toriel was having a fit to herself, Byran was making his way out of his ‘bedroom’. Once again, he didn’t really have anything to say or dwell upon for this and really seemed unbothered. He got what he wanted and nothing else. Thankfully he would shut the door behind him, so Toriel wouldn’t further aggravate herself by gazing into his deplorable living conditions… She still had to witness this double jeopardy nightmare of a house, but still. 

Shortly after Byran returned to the foyer, a loud set of knocks pounded from the front door. They were slow enough to give the previous knock just enough of an echo before the next one: the perfect tempo to be ominous as hell and to exacerbate the dread feeling this place gave Toriel. 

‘Ohh what  _ now?’ _

“Ohf!”

Byran shifted his gears and hurried down the creaking steps.

“I’m comin! I’m here! Hold up!”

The front door opened again and there was something else blocking the orange sky behind it. 

“Hey hey  _ hey!  _ Am I late to the housewarming party?”

Byran scoffed amusedly and grinned albeit hesitantly.

“Hey man, How you doin?”

It was Charles who entered. Toriel could discern his voice almost as easily as Byran’s, the two of them had a peculiar way of speaking their words and slanting their sentences. Charles just sounded older, he  _ was  _ older than Byran, obviously. Toriel could remember their first conversation. Though… this was the first time she capitalized on the chance to see what he looked like and… there wasn’t really much to him actually. He was a fair bit taller than Byran, a fair bit bigger, he didn’t have any scars or markings on him like Byran did. Charles walked in with a cold draft and removed his fisher’s hat while unzipping his blue thermal jacket, he took a second to fix his hair part. 

“Pretty good, pretty good my man-”

He outstretched his hand again and this time, Byran took the handshake much quicker than the last one. This one came with a pat to his shoulder that didn’t result in a flinch. 

“- I just wanted to see ‘Mr Rantz’ standin in his new  _ estate.  _ Moving up in the world! Eh?”

Byran scoffed again.

“Why you keep callin me that? You know I’m just  _ Byran.” _

“I keep on doin that because- you’re remindin me of Mr  _ Rantz!  _ Seriously. I mean- if your father could see you now- Boy, he’d be all colors of proud of you. He’d start callin  _ you  _ ‘Mr Rantz. ‘Mister  _ Byran  _ Rantz.’” 

They finally put some distance between themselves. Byran just shook his head and tried to put away his grin.

“Ahhh  _ geez-  _ nahhh, you’re not- you ain’t for real.”

“I sure  _ am!  _ But alright, gimme the grand tour. I wanna see whatchu put for yourself- I mean, with how ugly it looks on the outside, it’s  _ gotta _ make up for it in… here…”

It seemed he finally took a look at his surroundings and lost all of his momentum. His smile was reduced to nothing as well as his cheery mood.

“Byran, this place is  _ trashed.  _ What the hell, man? What happened?”

Byran shook his head and shrugged earnestly.

“Nothin, it was like this when I bought it. I’m kind of glad it  _ is  _ like this.”

“No shittin me?  **_Why?_ ** The hell’s wrong whicha? Why would you dump your money on a shit heap like  _ this?  _ Did you even pay em for this or did they  _ bribe  _ you  to take it off their hands?”

“Nooo, nothing like that: I bought this place because well… this is- this is-”

Byran shrugged once more and his voice hopped an octave as he gestured to all the gloomy walls around.

“-This is where I  _ grew up.  _ For a little bit. This is my father’s house-  _ was _ my father’s house.” 

Charles’s face contorted to a different kind of surprised look.

“ _ OOooohhh.  _ Really though? This is where Mr Rantz lived? This is where  _ you  _ lived? Wow. It’s uh.. It’s-”

“It’s a fuh-reaking mess, I know. You can thank the police for that-”

Byran gestured over to the bleaching in the living room. Charles’s eyes widened further and his voice got softer.

“Ohhh.  _ Shit  _ dude… Are you-”

“The wall there, that used to be  _ me _ all over it, and then smeared as I slid to the floor. You remember how I told you it.”

  
  


“ _ Yeeeahh.  _ Uhhn _.  _ That’s messed up, I had no- do you wanna like  _ talk  _ about this? I mean, I’m already skeptical about you buying this place in this condition, but…  _ are _ you sure this is good for you? I get that place means something to ye but, this is really harsh, Byran. I don’t want you to be reminded of- y’know, everytime you look in there.”

“Oh  _ yeaah.  _ Don’t worry about it! I’m good,  _ really.  _ Like  _ really _ really! I’m gonna just pluck up the flooring in there and get it re-tiled. Get a new paint job on all the  _ walls- _ After the electrician comes by and checks all the wiring before we turn this place back on. I already had a plumber take a look at all the pipes- so  _ that's _ good. It’ll be good for me to fix this place up and make it nice again.”

Charles gritted his teeth a little, a subtle and prolonged cringe on his second glance at everything and at Byran’s unforeseen confidence and  bla·sé attitude for this. Toriel was bothered by it too, this was unlike him. Byran’s friend grunted uncomfortably and moistened his lips.

“Are you  _ sure?  _ You don’t gotta put this on yourself, pal. I know I said you’re shaping up to be like your old man-”

He touched the nametag on Byran’s inherited coat.

“-But-chu don’t gotta  _ be  _ him come back to livin.”

Byran sat on it for a second and eventually nodded.

“I know. It’s not just for him though and it’s not just for me. It’s for  _ us,  _ man. I wanna do this for us. I wanna restore this place, make it nice. Make it into a real  _ home _ . It didn’t have a chance to be one just like I never had a chance to live a ‘normal life’. I have the opportunity to  _ change  _ that, you gave it to me yourself. It’ll still be a heap of hard work, but…”

“And that’s your most favorite thing in the world.” 

Charles snickered a bit, a fond smile finding its way back to him. 

“It’s more like a hobby at this point.”

A further amused chuckle.

“You really  _ are _ turnin into yer father.”

  
  


Byran exhaled and wagged his finger.

“Don’t tell my aunt that, she’ll blow a fuse.” 

“I ain’t sayin nuttin.  _ MM _ though, did you get the chance to take a look at the proposal I forwarded to you?” 

The friendly banter between them expired in favor of a more direct tone. Byran readjusted his coat and nodded while flicking some dust from his hands.

“I  _ did _ actually, and eeurh. I dunno, man. We agreed to keep it to small arms and small transactions-”

He stuttered and stumbled on some of his vowels.

“-and this is completely outside.”

Charles showed more energy in his movements and words with an argument to this.

“Yeah but, did you see how much  _ money _ they’re offering us? I said we’d only have to stick to small guns and single persons for a  _ while- _ and then this here is the perfect rung to climb up from!”

Byran made a concerned kind of  _ *tch*  _ sound with his tongue. He tilted his head and showed a lot of hesitation.

“But these’re military grade _explosives_ they want. How can you justify self defence or sport with _those?_? You know we ain’t risking giving some fuckbrained scumbag a piece so he could shoot up a buncha people, this has fishy all over it… Like the guy- _remember_ the guy who started up because he wanted the M203? A full automatic Assault Rifle wasn’t enough for home security but a _grenade_ launcher would suit him better? I don’t wanna know what he was planning with that, we both agreed to deny him. This one just feels the same, but with a bigger reason _not_ to go through.”

Charles made his own kind of  _ *tch*  _ sound, sounding more disappointed or acknowledging. Then he cracked up a bit, making a wheeze somewhere in his throat.

“Oh  _ buddy.  _ Is that what you’re worrying yourself with? Okay. I  _ know _ what they’re gonna do with em, I’ve seen this stuff all the time before and it has  _ nothing _ to do with  **_‘blowing people up’.”_ **

Byran squinted.

“What… what else do you  _ do  _ with explosives then?”

There was an abrupt fit of laughter, it was kept brief to prevent any feelings of disrespect: it was still too funny to Charles to avoid it entirely. 

“My god, you- you’re really  _ something. Nooo,  _ demolition! Mining! Companies especially out of the US of A are always lookin for cheaper places to get em. They ain’t gonna mention their little skimps and saves for the books and we don’t ask questions. That’s how it works.”

“Huh…”

It was really an inquisitive kind of noise shaped to sound like he knew what Charles was talking about.

“Alright, so. The guys we’re talking to:  _ they ain’t no  _ company. What they’re gonna do is buy from us and then they’re gonna sell the satchel charges  _ to. _ The companies for more than what they’re payin us. It’s called a flip.”

“ _ Huh…” _

Byran was lightly biting on his index finger as the information was processing in him. His eyes were going all over the place. Charles was going full ‘lecture mode’ here. Using his hands and arms to enunciate his points.

“Now, of course we could make a fuss and call em out, go for their guys, or ask for even  _ more _ money-”

Under his breath and quickly.

“-as if we weren’t already getting an _assload-”_

“-But really, think of this: we do our thing and they do _their_ thing. That’s how everything in the world works. We’re gettin paid, they’re gettin paid, whatever company is outsourcing is saving a buck or a euro or whatever. We’re all winnin here in the end and the only person gettin cheated out of course is the _gov’ment_ just like you want, right?”

“ _ Hmmmmm.  _ Are you positive on this?”

“Of  _ course  _ I am, Byran. You don’t get to stay doin the stuff I do unless you get the straight facts. This is as harmless and simple as it goes: it wouldn’t even be  _ illegal  _ if we done do paperwork and wait for half a year. It’s done so much.” 

More hesitation and grinding teeth… mildly unhygienic teeth with no silver fang. 

“I dunnoooh…”

He was gripped by his shoulder and lightly shaken, it was done with good humor and intention.

“C’ _ moooon,  _ Byran. Think of the cash! You’re gonna be a guy who just made $12,000 in a day. And that’s just the pre-payment! This one’s an ace in the hole, and you won’t gotta hav’ta worry about them charges blowin up on  _ us _ anymore! CMoooon.”

“MMMMMmmmmmm.”

He pressed his lips together tightly and scrunched up his face.

“Byyyraaaann, c’moooon mannnn. Don’t know if we’ll ever get a deal like this agaiiin!”

Byran “MMMM’ed for a little longer and the loudest it had gotten. He exhaled rapidly and finally,

“Oh alright, let’s do it.” 

Charles lit up like a christmas tree.

“ATTA.  **_BOY!”_ **

He slapped Byran squarely on the back, it hurt and sounded like a branch snapping. Byran would make a casual sounding “ow.” Charles didn’t seem to notice though.

“I’ll tell em we’re ‘go’ for it and get it all set up and then after, you and I? We’re goin out to get  _ drunk!”  _

Byran couldn’t help but chuckle slightly, he did shake his head though.

“Ohh no, I-i-iey- can’t do that.”

Charles was ever the more skeptical, but still playfully. 

“Whaaaat? C’mon, you’re  _ 21  _ now. It’s all good,  _ live _ a little, y’know?”

He went and closed up his jacket while making for the front door, Byran would open it for him and make a little snicker again.

“I’ll think about it. See ya later, man.” 

“You’ll also see a big fat stack of  _ cash _ too, better bring a duffel bag.”

One more mutual chuckle between them before Byran shut the door behind his friend and returned to his lonesome- He opened the door again to greet someone else, but with a more reserved smile. It was his aunt. 

‘What?’

* * *

Had she been waiting outside right in front of Charles or something? No… what had been the tail end of a falling day was now the full dawn of a bright afternoon behind her. It wasn’t just the sky that had become brighter though: Toriel would see that the interior had followed suit. All of the windows were mended and unobstructed while the amount of dust was far less too. A lot of the busted and rotted looking furniture had either been restored or removed from the premises. The living room though… had been stripped of its stained surface as bare wooden planks basked in the sunlight. 

So obviously a lot of time had passed, it was made even more obvious to Toriel with the fact that Byran’s clothing had changed (underneath the same green jacket though). He was making good on his word to fix his home but he still had a lot of work to do. It didn’t stop him from being eager to show Aunt Loisa around. He greeted her at the door with a hug.

“I’m really glad you could make it! I just finished taping up around the trim in the bathroom down here, gonna primer it tonight.”

She was happy to see him too of course… but something seemed to be bothering her. There was something real subtle about her tone and her voice, even to how she moved almost trepidatiously.

“I’ll always make sure I can be here for you, Byran.”

She looked around and took an uncomfortable sounding breath.

“Gosh.  _ I.  _ Haven’t stepped in here in over a decade… I didn’t think I’d ever be  _ able  _ to again…”

Byran placed his hands on his hips, around a toolbelt he was wearing, he nodded.

“Yeeah, I know, right? It’s still a little weird comin in and out, bein in here actually alone y’know? It’s nice in some ways though, y’know?”

Aunt Loisa didn’t pay much mind to him, she had been looking into the naked living room while his words turned to blurred noise. Despite what Byran had done, she was probably still seeing unpleasant things. She had an abrupt shiver that seemed to remind her that Byran was talking to her. 

“ _ Wha? _ Hmm? What’s that, sweetie? I’m sorry.”

“Oh don’t worry about it, I was just saying it’s been a hell of a job fixing this place up. Everytime I get something, it’s like three more are suddenly  _ there.  _ I didn’t think this was gonna be  **_easy_ ** but you know?-”

He was pretty amused and couldn’t really finish his sentence. Clearing his throat would help him start another one.

“Would you like something though? We got power and water and everything. I got some eggplant parmesan in this new fridge I got installed- oh yeah! You gotta see the fridge, it’s got a water dispenser in the  _ door. _ It’s pretty cool, it’s always cold. You want some water? No? Alright… This place is  _ almost  _ livable at this point, I got a guy coming tomorrow to take a look at the furnace and he says he may even be able to install central  _ air:  _ can you imagine  _ that?  _ God this place used to get so  _ hot  _ in the summer. Remember how sweaty I’d be when you’d pick me up?”

He laughed, looking to his aunt for a similar expression. She looked at him dead on instead.

“You’re going to be able to  _ pay _ for all that?”

The uncomfortable look seeped into Byran, but he still sounded pretty sure of himself.

“ _ Yeah,  _ of course I am. He already  _ gave  _ me an estimate-”

Another amused exhale as Byran went for his coat pocket.

“- it’s weird. I spoke to him about it as I was driving from the home store. On this ‘cellular phone’ pretty cool huh?” 

Toriel squinted at Byran’s Nokia 1011.

‘That looks strikingly similar to  _ my _ cell phone… what is the time here again?’

He was almost done brandishing his phone to his aunt. 

“I gave you my number for this, right? You can call me whenever you want, wouldn’t have to wait for me to be  _ here _ or the apartment.”

Loisa was barely contributing to the conversation and for what would become a good reason, the first thing she said blew the smile off of Byran’s face. 

“Byran, could you tell me again how you’re paying for all this? This house, your phone, the  _ car _ … and  _ what  _ is this job you have now?”

He was taken back a little, there  _ were  _ a lot of things to answer for her in that sentence. Byran stammered and ran through his thoughts before deciding to start with something.

“ _ Well,  _ this place really wasn’t all that  _ much _ to put a payment on. I’m sure you can imagine  _ why _ the ‘property value’ went down so much. I was tellin my boss how the bank was just about ready to pay  _ me _ to take it off their hands.”

She nodded, regardless if she was satisfied with his response or not. Aunt Loisa decided to pull out another question from Byran’s answer. 

“OK. Your  _ ‘boss’ _ Charles, is he? What do you all do? What kind of work does he do? I know I’ve asked you before, but you just told me it was nothing I would be able to find in the yellow pages.”

“Well i-i-it’s  _ not.  _ It’s really small time.”

“But it pays you enough that you can buy your parents’ house and everything else….”

He squinted assertively, a touch irritated.

“Why are you saying it like  _ that?” _

Loisa detected the inherent line she stepped on and backpedaled a little bit.

“I just want to be sure I am under _ standing  _ you correctly, is all. You have this well paying job and you can’t tell me what it is you  _ do…” _

“I can’t  _ tell  _ you. Because you keep **_interrupting_ ** me.”

She stood back and motioned with her open palms to calm down.

“OK. OK. I’m sorry, could you please tell me what you do at your work?”

He could… but he’d rather throw his own hard hitting question at her.

“Why is it  _ so _ important, anyway? Can you let me know  _ that?” _   
  


Toriel could feel a reprisal of that ‘hostile’ feeling. Perhaps Aunt Loisa felt it too, she only sounded more worried as this continued to spiral.

“I’m just  _ worried _ about you, Byran. I’m worried that you could be settling in the wrong  _ place. _ ”

  
  


“ _ Huh.” _

He just loudly exhaled and… this was going to be proof that Brainz’s sarcasm existed before he even called himself that. Byran started pacing and making slightly volatile movements and twitches. 

“You’re  **_‘worried’_ ** about me.  _ That’s kinda weird.  _ You weren’t worried about me at all when I was living in a tiny concrete  _ box  _ or a  _ slightly LESS tiny  _ box in the bad part of town, barely making enough to  _ eat. _ But now that I’m earning enough to live in a decent house and eating proper meals.  **_NOW_ ** you’re worried.”

Now it was an argument, his aunt burst out with fearful frustration.

“I  _ WAS _ worried about you! I was worried so much that I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t  _ sleep _ for half the days. I never knew a person could  _ be _ so worried! I’ve been worried to death for you before you could even  _ talk,  _ Byran!”

“ _ Yeah?  _ Well you sure had a grand way of  _ showing  _ it. Woulda been nice to actually  _ know.” _

She had a slight gasp, never did she think Byran would believe her to be lying to him. If anything… it was like this was the first dispute they had with each other: both of them were unprepared and didn’t know what to do. Aunt Loisa’s voice rose to a grating level, she sounded like  _ Marge  _ for a moment. 

“I  _ ALWAYS  _ DID! I  _ never  _ wanted to  _ burden  _ you further! You had ENOUGH on you already! The last thing you would need would be to know that I was up  _ sick _ , TERRIFIED for you and it’s only gotten WORSE in recent years and you  _ know _ why! So  **_maybe??_ ** You could understand why I feel this way,  **_maybe_ ** you can imagine why this all seems  **_suspicious_ ** to me.  **_Maybe_ ** you can realize what with your  _ father _ and what  _ he  _ did, why I’m afraid for you!”

Everything paused, the time was still progressing but the conversation went dead. Toriel would suddenly lurch over with a ghastly sounding wretch that couldn’t even come out all the way. From nowhere, there was a jolt of unalloyed  _pain_ that spread through her entire being in an instant. It was horrible, it made Toriel fearful on the spot: like it would happen again at any time. She also feared that when she would manage to get up and out of her own world of misery, that she would be in a completely different place… Toriel was _half_ right about that. 

This may have been Byran’s house, but there was no mistaking the corruption of the red hell. It explained the hostile feeling, as the red crept up all the walls and swallowed all color. Byran was still there and so was his aunt, but it would’ve been better if they weren’t…. He was as red as the walls, spite and anger made his voice all quiet and sinister just like Brainz.

“So you  _ were _ lying to me… I knew it. All those times I cried to you because the cops thought I was just a  _ crook _ and you told me that you  _ believed  _ me when I said I wasn’t. You think I’m just a good for nothing  **_CROOK_ ** like you always said my father was? Is that it? That the only reason I ever got out of that fucking hole you put me in is because I’m breaking the  _ law!?  _ **Is THAT it?** Or did you  _ always  _ think this? I fuckin  _ knew  _ it-”

Loisa looked like she was staring into hell itself, there were no words to the expression she was making. But Byran looked worse: he had such rage in his face… but it was only to hide how hurt he really felt. The way he accused and spat at his aunt, the person who cared for him. Toriel was back standing in her living room, watching the same thing happen from the same person. The only difference here was that Aunt Loisa wasn’t the one who did wrong by him, it was  _ Byran.  _ He was angry at himself, everything his aunt feared for him was all true and he was ashamed of it. He just couldn’t tell her though… he couldn’t explain why, but he just couldn’t. Toriel couldn’t blame him for this, she couldn’t take it personally that Brainz did the same thing to her… it wasn’t his fault: it was his father speaking through him. He said horrible things, a tapestry of foul words and pointed statements that he didn’t even realize he was creating. It hurt him to say, it hurt Toriel, it hurt everyone: she only knew now that he didn’t mean any of it… but did Aunt Loisa?

In the end, Byran told her to leave him alone. He stood there panting while the red in his face began to drain away. His aunt was motionless except for how she quivered and how tightly her hands fumbled with each other. When Byran finally came back down and realized what he had done, he tried to take it back.

“I am… sorry about that, you’re just stressing me out.”

He and Toriel both knew that the apology wouldn’t do anything, nothing to stop the glassy eyed woman from tearing up and giving Byran what he demanded of her, to leave. 

No though, it would’ve made sense if she did, but Aunt Loisa wasn’t going to do the typical thing here. She instead took a real deep breath and sighed it out without a single shake or sob. 

“OK.”

She said, barely above a whisper, she nodded blankly at him.

“Okay, I understand. I will not bother you about this anymore… But Byran.”

To him, as sincere and a human could ever look. With all the years and tears she shared with him.

“I just pray you aren’t in any kind of trouble, because this isn’t _ like _ you.”

The look on him, the stockstill animation. He wanted to say something, he really did. Toriel wished he  _ would,  _ she already knew though… that Aunt Loisa would leave and Byran wouldn’t say a single solitary word. Loisa would give him one more look, it would’ve broken him if his mind wasn’t already made up.

“If you ever are,  _ please _ come to me. Let me  _ help _ you, we’ll get through it  _ together.  _ **I just want to help…”**

Despite her words, Byran would be alone once more. Left within the embrace of his work, in the dark to fester. The red hell was upon him, he’d walked through its door many times already… eventually he would be unable to leave as Toriel couldn’t. 

_ I’m not in any trouble… _

_ I can stop it whenever I want…  _

_ I can still change... _

It was a  **_lie._ **

It was already  **_too late._ **

  
  


* * *

  
  


They were  _ all _ there, all on either side of him. They jeered and scorned, the cries of a thousand hateful consciences turned the room into a wailing storm. Toriel could  _ see _ this time, there were so many people all sitting in folding chairs. They barely utilized their seats, many stood: if not to see over the person in front of them.

_ “Get him IN there already!”  _ **SIT DOWN**

_ “ _ **I hope it** **_fucking HURTS!”_ ** I SAID  _ SIT DOWN! _

**_“_ ** I hope you burst into FLAMES!”  **Back in your seats, EVERYONE!**

**_“_ ** **You’re goin to HELL,** **_RANTZ!”_ **

  
  


Somewhere, a drum banged its monotonous rhythm: it overshadowed all the yelling and grew faster every minute. The only thing that aspired to be as loud as the percussive beat, was the sound of chains rattling and dragging through the floor. 

Toriel couldn’t move, she couldn’t do anything but she was tall enough to stand over all the furious onlookers. Tall enough to look through the glass and read the bold printed word on Byran’s back.

**_INMATE: GRUNEY PENITENTIARY_ **

  
  
  


He was no younger than before but he was back in the orange and black jumpsuit. Toriel could only see him from behind, as he had been bound in many places by wrought iron chains and was being escorted by a pair of guards down a cold tiled aisle. His head had been shaved clean, revealing a massive crescent shaped scar. 

The drumming continued to increase in tempo as Byran was marched forward, the speed shot up when Toriel saw where he was going. A tall and oddly shaped wooden chair outfitted with large leather belts all over it. They sat him down and replaced all the chains with those straps: arresting him to the chair. The drumming was frantic and Toriel could feel it. She was able to see his face one last time before a black hood was draped over his head: his face was soaked even before they poured water on his head and stuck some kind of helmet on it. 

The crowd went wild… all of their shouts melded into the same kind of request. 

_ DO IT _

**_DO IT_ **

**_DO IT_ **

Only one voice asked a question.

_ Do you have any last thing you would like to say?  _

The heaviest of wheezes were muffled behind the black fabric. The drumming was a full speed, it wouldn’t be able to sustain itself for long. The raw pandemonium went on until the large clock above the chair struck  **_‘6’._ ** The minute the miniscule red hand touched the ‘12’ at the top and its larger siblings ticked into place…

“ **_ROLL IT.”_ **

There was a loud  **_*THUNK!*_ ** that brought every existing thing to a STOP. And then came the sensation…  **the pain so exquisite that it did her in… only she was familiar with it already.** Every inch of her being  _ popped  _ and  _ crackled!  _ All exploding with agony as she  _ convulsed  _ and seized up. This time, she could  _ see…  _ Byran did the same as she did, his trapped form thrashed and writhed: stretching the belts that held him. An everlasting grunt came from the deepest places inside of him and crashed into the back of his throat as he  _ struggled  _ involuntarily. His body fought to its very end against it until…  **Everything stopped.**

**The drumming ceased.**

**Byran drooped his head.**

**All sensation halted following the smell of smoke and the enveloping** **_cold._ **

Toriel was taken away again, but she wouldn’t leave without the damning conclusion that eluded her before… 

Byran was dead.

Toriel was alone once again, back to her domain of nothing. It waited patiently for her this time, no occurrences to fade into nor snippets of life to inherit. When she would recover again, she would be back to her only familiar place: laying on the floor of the red hell while everything felt like broken glass inside of her head. Her head would be lying just before her own two feet, her  _ red _ feet that matched the rest of the house. When she hazily looked up, she was glaring at herself again. She looked about as horrible as she felt.


	10. 09

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad things happen when the entire Rantz family is under one roof.

“Now **_sweetie,_ ** _why?_ Do you- look so- **_Ḏ̵̢̆͒͛́͜I̷̖̊̏͒̎S̴̡̙̮̉̋ͅT̴̮͖̙͙̓̾̕͠R̸̪̫̖̼̈́A̷͇͖͛̏͜Ǘ̴̟̙͎G̶͖̟̲͒̓H̴̟̳̫̻̉͋T̶̲̾_ ** I would **-have** figured that _you!_ Would be _used_ **to** watching him _DIE!_ Unless you’re just **_SO HAPPY!_ ** To SEE? **_ME!”_ **

Not-Toriel was bent way over, staring right down with its mangled face. Real-Toriel would panickedly scramble away on the floor before she clumsily shot up to her feet. The lasting feeling of 'dying' was still gnawing at her. She got to a good enough distance from this thing (Even though she established it couldn’t do much to her already) and tried to catch her breath (Breath, thoughts… what’s the difference anymore? None of them actually worked), still images of what she just saw and lived were still searing into her eyelids. 

“What _was_ that.” 

She basically demanded, not fully realizing she was asking this sadistic thing for information.

“ **_T̶͙̯̤͇̑̈͂ͅH̶̨͙̲̘̣̲̦A̸̫̗̼̔̐̂͠T̸̮͍̯̦̜͉̥͔̽̔̎̇͝?̴̜̺̙͎͍͕̦̉͛̏”_ **

It just laughed at her, it was pretty sickening hearing something wet squelch inside of it as it did. 

“ _These_ are just **_your_ **fault…” 

Toriel had no patience or calmness to resist wanting to scream her head off. 

“ **_What?!_ ** That is **_outrageous! HOW_ ** can _any_ of this be the slightest bit _my-_ ”

She just realized that Byran literally _died_ in that memory which was of course, inherently impossible considering not so recent events. She rebuffered mentally, it didn’t do much for her stability. 

“Byran _DIED?_ How is that even **_possible?!-”_ **

Toriel stammered in all directions in her futile efforts to come up with the reason he was very alive and talking to her so many years later. Not-Toriel was just watching this show and chuckling internally at her. Toriel anxiously murmured to herself.

“-This has to be a bad dream. It must have been a _bad dream!”_

The evil doppelganger just laughed even harder and stretched its malicious smile at her. 

“Ẃ̷͕̺̿͂͗̓͑̚ȟ̷͎͙̥͔̮̠͕̀̉̊̍̇̕a̷̫̪̼͌̈́̑͌̈́t̴͔̜̖̅́̍̉̋̕ ̶̮̌à̴̢̳̘͚̯ **_̶̗̉̈́̃b̵͉͎͒̃̕ä̵̯́͆̕d̵̢͚̥̼͖̱͊̇_** **̵̹͉̊͗͋͑͐̌͝d̴̖̲̦͚͍͑́ŗ̸̗̘̾̉̐̓̕͝e̷̗̹̅̏͂̎̋͑̚è̶͔̮̝̼͙̖̺͐̑̕m̵͉͖̳̳̟̩̈́͆͊͋̚!̷͙̉͊̑̈̕”**

Toriel made the mistake of looking into its vacant eye sockets. The red hell would cease to exist around her, but her surroundings were still familiar. The unmistakable city of ‘New Home’ lay in ruins to her side once more. She could have wondered why she was here again, but Brainz would put that to an end as he crawled along the blood soaked ground once more. The first time she saw him was bad but after everything she had seen and known about his young life, the second time brought her so much more pain. Toriel couldn’t watch but she could still hear him scraping by just _begging_ to be put out of his misery. She would try to cover her ears and wait for the footsteps… and then for the gunshots to stop. Instead, she could hear it as clear as day.

“O̴̗̞͇̱͈͚͆̿̐̇ḩ̴̫̬̜̰̗̊̋ͅh̵̦͕͑͆͒̌̋̕h̸̹̎͌̃͆,̴̡̦͍̟̲̓ͅ ̴̥̯͓̻̲̇̐̉͂̊̕͠m̶̖͍͗̓͋͠y̴͙̥̼̿̍͗͊̄̀ ̸̛̬̺͉̬̻͊̊͂͜͝p̶̧̛̰̂ơ̷̧̜͉͓̠͑̂̇͜o̴͎̻͊̍r̵͚͓̘̞̿͊̃̈́̚̕ ̴̮͝l̵̻̅̃i̴͙͆̑͗͗t̸̛̩͈͍͉̲̓̃̀̇͘͠t̷̨̾̂l̵̰͓͎͗̍͌͘e̴͕͉̟̘̣̭͋͂̉̐ ̷̭͇̯͕̥̎͊͐̽C̶̛̝̩̰̎͋͛͋Ȟ̸̡͖̗̯̐͜Ì̸̢̟̺̄̇́͑Ḽ̴̤̤̬̼͖̗̌͝͝D̴̘̀͂…”

She had to look after that: it wasn’t soldiers that found Brainz, but Toriel herself who approached him so casually just to tower over his fallen form. She did nothing but stare down and _smile_ at him. 

“Help. Me…”

It was Brainz who uttered it. He could barely even form the words without retching more blood from his mouth… he even reached his only quivering arm up to her. Toriel did nothing but watch with that warm and inviting grin on her face… as if she would revel in watching him in such agony. It was torture, the simplest form of it. Just when the moment couldn’t become any more agonizing to watch, Toriel finally did something. She gave a little _wink_ and merely outstretched her own arm at Brainz, pointing his own stolen firearm right into his face. She shot him with a decisive motion, he completely slumped to the floor and Toriel shot him some more. She just kept firing upon his still body over and _over,_ the sound of the bullets striking Brainz’s flesh were as loud as the shots and ringing bells. 

She laughed, derisively turning into _maniacally._ Brainz never had a chance and Toriel wanted to be sure he was gone with every trigger pull greatly exaggerating the contempt she had for such a pathetic person like him. 

“No, _no,_ **_noooo!”_ **

The real Toriel tried to look away from the hypnotizing display of sadism, her ‘lying’ self only continued to mutilate the body with every blast. It wasn’t real, it _felt_ as real as life but it **_wasn’t._ ** This is what it _wanted_ her to think, to make her own guilt into these nightmarish constructs. These were not Byran’s memories, they were mutations on Toriel’s feelings. She had to get away. Toriel forcefully broke free from her stock-still condition and took to running away, down the bloodied path and back to the throne room. 

“N̴̹̚o̷̺͠w̴̬̕ ̶̝̏w̸̫̏h̵̛̝e̸̯͠ȓ̵̟ĕ̵̩ ̴̢̕d̶̘̕ỏ̵͈ ̴ͅy̶̿ͅo̷̊ͅu̷͎̒ ̵͍̓ẗ̶͈́h̷͖͝i̵̙̋n̸̬k̸̙̃ ̸̦̾y̴͔̎o̴̝͋ũ̶̠'̷̝̒r̵͈̒ȩ̵̓ ̴͖̌g̵̜͒ỏ̶̪i̷̱̍n̶̪͑g̵̝͠?̷̲͐”

Don’t listen to it, just get away… But the gunshots stopped, what was it doing now? Just-don’t _LOOK._ It felt like this damn walk had gotten longer, she should have made the turn by now… she should have gotten away from IT.

  
  
  


**_“T̵͕͊o̵͕̍r̵̈́͜i̵͙̅e̶̤̐e̶̔͜ě̵̬e̵̡͑e̴̝ẻ̵͎ḽ̸̂l̸̠l̵̆ͅl̷̝̐l̸̙͆l̵͉̿.̷͍̋.̶͇.̴̕ͅ.̸̝͗ W̶̤̠̹̙̼̤̟̃̐͒͒̄ḧ̸͍̃̅̐̔̍̿̚͠o̴̞͓̺̳̫̞̖̳̅̈͆̊ ̴̛͇̺͎̹̞̗̎̚͝ą̴͖̝̼̼̫̘̠̓͑̈r̶̢̼̤̫̖̓͝ë̶̡̧̨̢́͑̈́̈́̽̏͌̂̕ y̶̘̍ö̵͖u̶͚͆ ̶̬ŕ̶ͅű̶̮n̶͓̾ň̸̼i̷̜͛n̵̯͛g̸̥̃ f̴r̵o̶m̴?̵_ ** Don’t be so **_silly,_ **MOM.

She stumbled to a quick stop with a horrid gasp.

‘That _voice…’_

_DON’T DO IT._

It wasn’t a choice anymore, it was impossible now. Toriel fearfully turned her head over her shoulder. 

“Mom it’s me, **A̶̡̢̳̙̞̰̼͇͓͔͖͋̅͗͑͝s̸̻̈́̐̈́͋̔͛r̴̢̘͓̳̻͖̃̈̾̀́̽̒̉̕͝i̵͉̥̘̐̌͂̌͒̌̓e̵̡̨͇̖͙͙͐̎͐̊͑̆l̴̥̟͖̓͑̈́̿͊̆͋.”**

“No…”

She begged, at the utter loss of her wit. Toriel turned herself around almost vacantly… to get a good look at that little face.

“ **_Noo… Nnh-no-ho-hooh…”_ **

She shook her head while the drops fell to the floor from it. 

“Don’t you **_l̶̘̒o̷͔͂v̷̗͘ȅ̷͎_ **̴̬̄ṃ̶͌e̶̬̋ ̵̲͗a̸̟̒ń̵ͅy̸̤̾m̶͉̐o̶͔r̷̘͗e̷͍̋?̴̳̐”

“ **_NO!_ ** You- you are _not- you-y-o_ you **can not** **_DO_ **that!”

“Ŵ̶̯h̴͍͝y̷̱͝ ̶̬̃d̴̛̳i̵͙ḓ̸͆ ̴̭́y̴͉͐o̴̡̿u̶͍̐ ̵͙̓l̸̻͗e̴͚͋t̶͍͊ ̷̟̌m̸̦͛e̸̫͠ ̷̰͆D̴̜͆I̸̤̋Ȩ̷͠?̵̞̃”

Toriel twitched and clenched her claws until it hurt, her jaws unfused from each other and she took a massive wailing gasp. 

“What the **hell** _ARE YOU?!!?!”_

The visage continued to hobble for her, the pistol was clutched in its little claws. Toriel covered her reddened and soaked face and stepped back.

“Why are you **_DOING THIS?!”_ **

  
  
  


_"̸̡͙̖̪̏͊̀̈́̉̈́̊̃̊̾̀͛̕̕M̵̨̗̥͉̩̙͋̏͒̔͊̂̍́͗̓̏̾̀̌̇̑̃̓̕̚͘͜͝ͅo̴͇̝̣̠̩̜͋̐̒͂̇͋̀͛͆̈́̋̆͋̔̈̏̇̚̕̕͝͝m̴͓̼̲̞̭̭̰͖̝̲͚͉̜͓̝̲̊̒̒̌͛̅̎͒̓̿̅̓̓̔̽̌̊́̿́̆̈́̿̚.̵̢͔̱̫̲͇̺͇͂̅̓̓̇̒̆̄̇͐́̒̅̒͊̀̂̚͜͝͝.̷̧̧̡͖͍̣͉̙̥̣̝͕͎͕̲̰̼͚̞̳̱̯͍̰̼͍͊̎̋̓̿̋̋̋̽̕.̴̧̛̛̛͇̥̥̳̘̦̖̩͖̼͈̙̘̈̾̉͆͐͐̓͂͂́͌̕̚͝͠.̸̩͔͎̰̩̦͙͉͇͉̯̫̙̺̱̂̔̉͒̃͛̅̌͊̐͘̚͜"̶͚͍͙̬̮̝̪͉̬̥̊̉̑͊͜_

It had gotten so close that Toriel could see the shimmering in its eyes. She saw that the red soaking the ground was _bleeding_ into its form. Of everything screaming into her soul, she found the one voice that told her to get up and run away again. That’s exactly what she did, doing so without taking one additional look behind. It called for her in his voice, but it started to lose his likeness as it got _angered…_ It wasn’t _him…_ it could **_never_ **be. But even before its horrible disgusting ruse began to fall through, Toriel couldn’t figure how she made herself turn away.

Honestly, it wasn’t that hard in the end. It wasn’t like Toriel hadn’t seen him in over twenty years, he’d appeared thousands of times in her dreams and nightmares. Every single time would he reach out to her, calling her by that name… **_and every time she tried to reach him, he always vanished._ **How long had it been now: where she knew the dreams were just that and she stopped waking up with the vain hope that he would be there when she opened the door, tucked safely in his bed? That seeing his face meant she was just under another cruel spell by her own inflicted mind-

“God. _Damn_ you…” 

-or by some malignant demon that could _read_ her mind. There was no slowing down or trying to put herself back together, Toriel had to keep moving even in her repeated despair. The thing behind her was spouting distorted threats and demeaning slurs.

“This was. _Never!_ About B̵̡̦̮̰̅͊͜͜.̷̡͇̃̓̈̃̕͜R̵̟̟̱͙̎ȁ̶̡̙̺n̵͎̠̆̈́̈́́̐ẗ̵͖́̋͂̑z̴͇̝̐̓͊̚͝. I _know_ your **_pain-_ ** he was just your _NEXT!_ Å̷̖͓̦̼͒͠s̶̰̻͊̔̅̉̄͝ṛ̷͙͎̥̆̂͘͝i̸̛͚̯͉̺̜̿e̷̲̼̺̺͒́̑̚͠l̵̡̛̫̦̻̱̈́ ̷̢̯̘̑̒̽̕͘͜ but you **_fucked it up!_ ** Too! Like _all the others.”_

Toriel growled frustratedly and again covered her ears and hunched over while trying to run even faster. 

“You can’t _run away_ from **_Meeee!_ ** THAT’S what _happen?_ -duh! To B̶̧͔͔̗̜̳͋́̒́͑R̵̥̽̓̃A̵̜̟͖͙͆I̵͔̎̒̐͝N̴͍̓̈́̈́Z̴͔̼̈̈́͌! He thought **_you_ ** could _HELP!_ **Him.”**

She cringed and tugged ever tighter on her ears, she basically was screaming to overshadow the jumbles of words. She would be unable to hear anything further from Not-Toriel over her own desperate noises. Toriel had been trying to get ‘away’ so much that she had paid no attention to where she was actually going: she _thought_ she couldn’t go anywhere outside the path, but _that_ was debunked when something slipped from under her stamping feet and Toriel fell to the floor. Of course that hurt as if this was still reality, this place served only to bring her pain. 

Toriel groaned and looked over her crumpled form: she was in the judgement hall, how odd. It was still filled with charred bodies and soaked with all matters of monster or human substances. Toriel wouldn’t be concerned with the mess too much because she was focused on Not-Toriel who was still advancing on her. The world behind the evil figure was going dark, anything it crossed ceased to exist. The want to get away was still prevalent but if this place continued to vaguely follow the underground’s construction: running away further would result in Toriel smacking her face into the barrier. Sooner or later she would run out of ‘world’ and then what? 

...What did she trip on anyway? A body? 

“Ohh…” 

No, it was the purple jacket laying exactly in the same place as before. Its neat folds had been disturbed by Toriel, somehow that made all the difference now. The strange sense that it was trying to beckon her in was now back with a vengeance, stronger now that she was _touching_ the thing. As much as Toriel wanted to get up and get away from the approaching threat, she just couldn’t bring herself to part with the jacket. It had waited all this time and it wasn’t going to let her go now. 

“H̶͙͈̙̅̾̑͝E̴̛̞͍̖̙̬̬Ỵ̷̲̦͋͋ You better PUT that **DOWN!”**

Not-Toriel really didn’t want her to mess with the jacket? The daemon seemed fearful of it, Toriel was too: there was just no telling _why_ this thing had so much importance. 

“This **is** your _ONLY_ **Ẅ̶̛͈͖̻̖̲̟́̽̏̎͠A̴͎͊R̴̩͎͌̊N̶͎̪̘͊̿I̵̝͝Ṋ̸̯̫̣̑́̿G̵̬͚̓͌̓͒̄!̸̪̍̓̿̽̈́̕͜** **_DON’T_ ** **do** _it!”_

Toriel was never going to do anything the nightmare told her, but was she really going to obey what the _jacket_ was trying to make her do? What even was it? She had to pick it up fully from the floor so she could ‘hear’ it better. 

It. She wanted to put it on- _IT_ wanted _her_ to put it on, it was making her _want_ to. There was no telling what would happen but Toriel was already past hesitating on that. The only thing that was really stopping her was the fact she was quite a bit bigger than Brainz who was about the intended size for the wearer of the coat. A couple of seconds later and she felt stupid for letting that keep her apart from it for any longer. 

Not Toriel was right _there,_ all it had to do was step over a few bodies and it’d reach her. It gave one last threat.

“You’re going To **_S̷̡̨̹͍̠̫̮͙͆͒͝Ü̵̧͕̪̙͓͔̪͆͆͗̐̇̅̎͋͛͌̑̓̑̚̕͠F̷̢̫͚̠̪̹̣̘͇̟̭͎̯̪͍̘͚̍̅̓̆̃̄̍̿͗͌̌̿̓̚̕͜F̸̝͇̾̿̍̈́̓̊͌̄͝E̸̢̬͎̟̹̥̦͚͌̎̓̔͌̑̈́̓͂͌͘͝R̵̢̨̢̫̞͖͖̝̞̖̳͇̗̤̫̠̤̪̠̓̀̑̈́̇̄̿͗̃̍͛̈́͝”_**

[The Jacket](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Foe8VGzHGyA)

Toriel gave ‘herself’ one scornful look before jumping to her feet and slipping her arm through the first sleeve. It felt so _easy_ to do, it was like the coat had grown just for her. It wrapped around her like a blanket and it felt so comfortable. She felt so _warm_ and _safe…_ all of the fear welled up inside of her just became nothing, it felt _better._ With this coat, Toriel could just hide from everything beyond the smooth lining. Her evil doppelganger took the highest kind of offense from what she did, it reached to grab her by her arm… but Toriel was gone before it could even touch her. The coat wouldn’t just hide Toriel from all the horror, it would hide all of it from _her:_ bringing her back to a familiar place. **_HOME._ **

* * *

The red hell was just as red and infinite as ever. Toriel came around in her chair, the only piece of furniture in the living room that broke up the hallways. She got up from it and stood out in the open, for all the unseen eyes and shadows to glare at her. Yet, with the jacket still hugging her tightly: Toriel was numb to the hostility in the air. All the bad feelings that this place had inflicted on her before, it was like they were being warded by what she was wearing. It felt so ‘nice’, she almost wanted to hit herself for not picking it up earlier. But really, how could she have known it wasn’t going to lead to something BAD for once? Or… perhaps she just hadn’t gotten there yet. 

While all the terrible feelings in the world were absent now, Toriel was not spared from a peculiar sound emanating throughout the house. A sort of **_rattling_ ** or **_clicking,_ **something metallic echoing from somewhere. 

‘Well-’

She thought, just emerging from another bout of traumatic mental flaying.

‘-I suppose I should investigate that.’

Toriel gave her new collar a tug.

‘Unless, I just need to wait for something to become of _this.’_

Spoiler: nothing did and nothing _would,_ not until she followed the noise enough to make her way back to her own front hall. The sound changed direction here, it was coming from the basement. The same basement that was cut off by that excessively sealed _door…_ perhaps something had changed about it. Whatever it was, there was an awful lot of racket coming from down those steps. Toriel had to shrug and make for the stairs, even anticipating she wouldn’t get anywhere again. 

**_“Ỹ̶̱̥͚̲͉̦͙̺͔̖̻͓͚̙̾̒͒͛̽͛͂̍̕Ō̸͕̒̊̓̑͐͠Ŭ̷̡̧͇͇͎̪̰͇͍̯͈̞̞͙͋̉̈́̾͜͠͝ͅ!̶̢̨̥̻͎̖̖͈͔͓̘̝͈̌̽̑͗̀̌̓̏͂̕”_ **

The loud shrieking accosted her from beyond the front door. Toriel would be looking at herself yet again but _behind_ the bars that kept her trapped in this house. Not-Toriel was locked outside.

“You think you’re ONto something. That **_Ỹ̶̱̥͚̲͉̦͙̺͔̖̻͓͚̙̾̒͒͛̽͛͂̍̕Ō̸͕̒̊̓̑͐͠Ŭ̷̡̧͇͇͎̪̰͇͍̯͈̞̞͋̉̈́̾͜͠͝ͅ’re_ ** on the _verge_ of discovering a **_SECRET! Y̴̪̭̰͎̙͐̍́̂͗̕͠ö̴̹̱̤́̉͑ũ̴̟̱̖̇̇̆̽͋̓'̷̝̥̿̃̿́͐͘r̵̢̞̭͔͍̞͂̆e̶̻̞̜̭̜͔̼̊ ̵̧̨̡͔̪̟̜̥̖͒͂̊̍̾̀̚w̵̡͍̖͔͔̏͜ͅa̶̛͍̱̟̭͗̊͛s̶̞͍̙͑̈́̈́̿̂̏̑͠ţ̴̩̦̾ͅḯ̵͔͇̅̄̇͋̎͌̈̏ñ̷̩͈͍͕̥͆̋ģ̴̧̧͚͔̻͌̑͋̂̀̈́̕͜͠ ̵̢̨͚̘̯̺̲̫̖̋͊̈͝y̷̬̻̽̾͋̎̈̃͗͋͘ͅo̵̲̩̭͍̤̥̥̰̿͂̋̔̔̂͊͂͘ų̶̢͚̼̽͂͒̄̽̆̀͝r̷͓̥͋̓̋̀̇͊̈́͜ ̷͕͙̤̻̤͖̱̳̎̂͌̅̆̇̚ͅŢ̵͍̦͍͔̪̥́͑̈́̿͊̚I̸̡̼͕̹̻̠̩̱̅̆́͝ͅM̴̡̠̩̣̘͖̩̣̈́̓̑̿̓̚̚E̷̥͖̱͇̦̜͛̐͑!̴̠̮̌”_ **

It howled at her with forced laughter, it cared quite a lot for Toriel and the ‘time’ she had or didn’t have all of a sudden. All while trying to slip through the bars as if it was physical.

“Why are you so upset over this jacket? What possible significance could it hold to you?”

This was going to be the only time Toriel asked it a genuine question and expected it to answer her. 

“I’m **_N̴̛͈̳̪̖̊͑͆͗̆̓̃͌̀͑͝͠Ō̸̮̹̖̹̜̙͕̳̾T̷̳̦̘̫̩̳̯͔̠̔̀͗́͠!̵̧͔̫͉̩̰̩͇̠̹͑̈́͆̈̏̅͗̉͋́̍̅̾͠_** I don’t _care_ **about it** at **_ALL-”_**

Said in a way that could only mean it cared about it a lot. 

“- _I_ am just **_trying!_ ** To _stop!_ **_“Ỹ̶̱̥͚̲͉̦͙̺͔̖̻͓͚̙̾̒͒͛̽͛͂̍̕Ō̸͕̒̊̓̑͐͠Ŭ̷̡̧͇͇͎̪̰͇͍̯͈̞̞͙͋̉̈́̾͜͠͝ͅ!̶̢̨̥̻͎̖̖͈͔͓̘̝͈̌̽̑͗̀̌̓̏͂̕_ ** from **_waltzing on in here and-_ ** RUIN- _ing!_ **_Everything_ **-you… tin can munching; double-dealing, sadistic BACKSTABBING FUCK…”

That last sentence actually told something to Toriel. This thing wasn’t speaking to her in its own words, it was _taking_ words from other people and places, and jamming them all together to make this weird broken speak. That is what it sounded like this entire time, but hearing that line… Toriel wasn’t going to forget anything unique about Brainz anytime soon. Hearing what was basically him yelling at her again, it did strike something painful inside but the jacket ebbed most of it. 

Not-Toriel though, it looked like it was _panicking._ All the momentum and sway it had before were now gone as it tried everything it could in its position to stop her from descending those steps. She was already going to, but now? Toriel was back to moving with a damned purpose, something big was laying down there. Something Not-Toriel knew very well. 

Not-Toriel, however, looked as if it was panicking. All the sway and momentum it held before disappeared as it tried everything it could to stop her from descending those steps. It was already within her intentions, but now? Toriel was back to moving with a damned purpose. Something big was laying down there. Something Not-Toriel knew very well and _**feared.**_

So she turned her back to the screeching demon and gripped the railing tightly as one foot descended below the floor. 

“YOU **_DON’T_ ** know! **_WHAT?!_ ** You’re **_D̸͕̗͙͋O̴̡̬͎̻̻̥̼͖̟̰͕͙͋̒͑̏̊̈͂̅̈́͘͜I̴̛̗͋͠N̶̨̧̺̥͍̈́́̉͑ͅĢ̸̡̲̳̙̩̠̞̰̟͉̘̳͈̘̙͑̾͐̿̇̕!! S̵̺̰̩͕̩͓͈̘͖͔̻̳̅̋̂͛͂̑͂͝T̶̛̥͊͒̿̒̔̍̆̎̿͘̕͘O̵̧̢̹̟͕̣̖̙͎͔͔̲̼͖͆̊̏P̶̛̠̠̗̺̓͑͒̍͂̔̿̔,̷̮̰̠̟̰͌̈̇̾̄͊͂̅̋́͌̃͆̑̕ ̴̨̼͕̰̦̙̠̟̟̌͒̓̈́͆̈́̎W̴̟̩̤͛̍͐̇͒̍͒̾̂͛̉̓͋͘I̶̡̧̱̟̗̬̺̓̈́̊͊̈̂̉̊͂́̅̆͘̕̚͜͝L̵͇̻̪͇̬̝̝̄̆̎̀͗͌̈͆̀̅̀Ļ̴̗̫̤̠̯̬͕̈́̒̉̈̈̓ ̸̜̩̰̠̳̪̗̞̟͈̏̃̋͋̏̀Y̶̧̨͚̗̞̩̮͔̬͎͖̎́̂͝Ǫ̴̨̢̛̺̮̙̼͚͕̩͎͛̋͂͐̑̏͌̌͝͝͠ͅU̷̗͖̟̤̼̣̝̺̺̱͜?̶̢̛̼̘̟͓̮͙̙̃̓̒̐͆̾̋̎̏̚͝͝͝͝!̶̧̨̬͈̗̙̹̭̩͔̔? Y̸̢̡̡̧̧̛͖̜̣͚̺̗͉̫̦̩̭̠̲̹̟͇͕̬͎̬͙̺͇̠̰͍̬͊̓̓͛̅͑͊͛̓̓́̌̆̍̈́̏͛͝͝ͅỌ̷͉̯̫̫̮̠͍̬̏́́̿̏̅͌͛̂̋̓̅̓̌̄̐̔̄͐̎̆̄̏͂̓̀̚͝͝͠ͅU̷̡̡̡̞̞͖̥̘͍̣͙͖̤̘̱͓̫̫͇̖͎̫͚̗͎̐̓̚͜͜͝͝ ̷̢̡̧̢̛͇̘̺͎̬͉͇̱̯̘̩͚͕͇̣͚̩̳̥̲͎̫̠̞͖̤͑̊̓̀͂̎̒̈́̐͛̋̏͆̈́̒̔̐̒̎͆̈́͒̎͂̋̋̓̄̀̆͂̓̽͂̕͘̚̕͜͝ͅF̷̨̢̧̨̛̱͓̣̩̫͙̲̰͖̠͈̪̻͌͛͊̿̅̾̉̓̈́͊̃͊̃̈́͗́̓̉͆̇̒̄̆͐̍̕̚͝͝͝͠Ḁ̴̧̡̳̼̝͇̹͎̗͕̹̲̝̰̦̞͉̺̠͈̦̠̣̙̥̼̬̫̭͕̺̤͚͎̲̙̺͉̐̈́̈̓̓̈́̈́͆̂͑̾̅̃͊̕͘͜ͅͅT̷̨̨̨̤̦̱̘̠͔̞̗͖̫̞͇̠̩̻͚̞̞̪̺͇̱̫̬̭̯̬͈͍͈̑̈̇̂̓͜͝,̶̨̨̛͓͉͚̱̰͉̪͎̳̫̫͖̬͕͎̗̉̓͌̌̋̑̈́̈̎̂̌̽͌̆̿̉͋̓̈́͑̿̐̅̋͛̿͗͋̾̈́̅̕̕̕͜͠͠ͅ ̴̨̡̨̡̜̳̘̝̦̘̝̙̣͎̠̟̰̹̩̠͈̖̲̪̰̫̖̱̪͔̠̰͎͉̼̳̭̟̠̐̽̐̾̾͒́̾̆̏̎̕͘͜͝͝Ḟ̶̨̨̧̨̧̻̲̦͕͎̮̰̩̭̟̫̦̹͍͉̱̄͐̈͂̄̇̌̋̊̒͒͗͗͌̈́̑͛̎̈́͑̓͑͗̅͗͛̔̕͝͝͝͠ͅU̷̢̟̹̩̹̗̬̬̞̲̣̤̙͍̖̝̬̱͓̥̗̲̘̩̼̩̻̟̦̙̥̦̜͇͈̖͈͛̽̐͂͛͂̈́̊͋̄̽̽̂͋̉̂̀̽͋̽̎̋́̈̄̐̋̾͋̒̌̏͝͝͠ͅC̸̢̢̢̧̹̬̙̺͚̤͚̜̣̳̪̯̼͍̘͖͇̝͍̟̜͕̺̦̘̻̽̂͋̌͛̽̑̿̆͠ͅK̶̛͎̬̺̱̭̥̩͙̠͕͙̳̾̽͗͜͝ͅĮ̸̨͙͉̜̠̥̙̖̫̤̳͍̣̦̣̖̮͎͓̻͙̩̩͍̲̗͔̉̆͆͋͌͌͋͌̒̏͐̃̈́̌̾͑̀͛̕͜͝͝ͅͅN̴̨̨̛̛͇̠̦̫̥̰͎̗̬͉̮̟͔̣̭͉̺̩̪̈́̎̑͛̀̾̅̍̈͛̑̚͝͝͝Ġ̶̛̛̻̤͚̮͇̞͎̬͚̲͍̘̖͙͔͎̳̝̇̎̾̂̄̊̎̂̈́̅̓̔̑̾͊͐̅͛́͌̓̏̀͆̈́́͛̔͒̔͘͘͝ͅ ̵̧̨̫̰͙̼̤͙̙̝̠̙̪̪̦͉͈́̿̀̑̑̋̋̋̓͐̂͌͋̓̋͒̔̽̋̂̐̚͘͜͝͝C̶̻̗̬͇̱̹͕̯̆͂̉̆̈́̽̈́̾̽̑͊́͋͒̉̉̚̚͠Ơ̵̧̧̡̡̡̦̦̳̖̤̝̮̠̟͎͇̘͙͉̟͍̟͓͎̮̥̹͙͎͒̇͒̊͒͒̎̓̓̽̓͌́̈́̌̂̊͋̐̾̑̊̒̇͊̈̈́̌̓̈́̇̿͆͂̿̀͛̊͘̚͝W̸̧̡̛̻̺͇̳̖̹̫̩͇͚̦͚̣͇̌̈́̌͆͂̋͒̓͒͂͌̆͗͒̇̅͌͌̌͠!̷̡̧̛̝̩͔̱̰͔̥̋͋̑̉̎͂̈́̑̂̓̄͛̾̔͌͊̃̄̓̈́̈͗̂̋̚̚͝͝͠͝”_ **

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


On the last step, Toriel couldn’t hear the unintelligible roars and shrieks from above. She departed from them and went to discover the source of the ever so persistent noise. The door was still there and so were all the chains, but now they were dancing and jumping around in place. It wasn’t them that were moving, they were just attached to it: this huge iron padlock that had seemingly come to life and was trying to break free from itself. 

Try as she would, Toriel would be unable to budge anything even in trying to give the lock what it wanted. It was as she thought, the door was going to say shut for good, back to where she was. All this fuss and intimidation about this coat and for what? What possible connection did this jacket that Brainz found have to _anything…_ let alone this padlock? 

Toriel suddenly reached down for one of her new pockets, nothing existing would compel her to do this… she just _did._ Maybe the coat was making her do it. Whatever the cause… she would never have guessed that she would pull out a little golden _key._ It was so small that she had trouble handling it in her big paws. It really didn’t look that impressive either, a mostly tarnished jagged toothed key with the numbers **302** engraved into the head.

…

It was a perfect fit into the padlock, but the moment it touched the keyhole, it tore itself from the links with a jarring _***KLAKK!***_ , before tumbling to the floor. All the chains it kept bundled together followed in its motion, violently undoing themselves from their notches and losing their red sheen as they clattered and jingled on the ground. When the last barricade went still, Toriel did not even have to try the doorknob; The door slowly swung itself away from her, creaking just as slowly, as a pitch black existence/stretch/emptiness was revealed beyond/behind it. The same childish giggles Toriel had heard before rang out from inside the opened portal… And so loudly, too, as if this was their true origin/where they really came from.

She did everything she could to brace herself for whatever she would find inside and then stepped through the doorway. 

S̶̢̧̛̻̮̪̣̪̹̤̣͙̳͇̹̬̞̗͕͖̖̦̪͍̺̥̜̰̱̞̩͓̼̠͇̫̮̬̮̙̎̑̋̓̾̓̆́̑͗͛͂̾̎̿̎̅̈́̒̎͐̓͋̑̂̑̕͜͠͠H̴̡̨͕͇̮̹̯̳̞̮̼̠̜͔̩͇͈̽̆͑̐͌̔̀̈̐̏́̿̆̑̔̂͗̽̌̌́̏̏̃̒̚͝͝E̴̮͚̭͙̲̮͐̓̿̿̾̐̉̿͒̌̑̍̉́̂͐͑͘͝ ̸̧͎͕̣̪̦̮̮͖̲̥̬̭̞̳̱̘̟͘L̵̨̨̧̢̹̝͍͙̦̫͔͍̣̫̘̩͈̤̺̹̣̝͎͎̮͉̦̆͗̅͗̏͜ͅI̶̧̡̡͍̪̬̥̟̯̟͖͇͕̮͍̲̯̜̰̲͎̪̯̘̲͚̩̼͛͒̃̃͋̍̾͑̈́̾̄̉̆̇̇̾͌͂̕͜͜͝͝͠Ḛ̷̢̢̢̢͍͉͇̦̣͖̜̞͓̬̜̻͚̆̉͜ͅͅD̸̛̯̠̤̣̼̟͛̊̾̑̇̉͑̑̆̈́̓͋̃̉̈́͗̒̇̔̀̇̿̃̓̕̚͝͝ ̵̛̝̙̩̖̯̦̥̣̮͖̫̓̉̾̄͋̐̍̎̋̓̿͑̊̊̓̔͘͘͠Ţ̸̢̛̛̟̳͈̼̼̬̣̠̬̥̻̙͉̖̦͉̤̖͕̜͙̳̺̭̲̻̲̙̠̠̹̙̝̫̭́̀̉͂͌̍̈́͗́̒͛̐̍̈́͘̚͜͜͜ͅƠ̶̧̞̮̙̜̝̤̟̩̻͖̎̔̉̍̈̌̐̋͒̎̐͒̓͌̉͑̀̊̋͗̇̊̓́̈̋̔̈̇͐̔̽̔̚͠ ̷̨̧̨̨̤͕̯̫̣̦̗͙͎̗̪̱̬͖͕̺̖̩̯͓̤̼̦͓̎̅̽̓͑͛̈́̍̂̐͊̆͋̈́̓̇̌̓̈́̊̓̈́͛̋̓͑̍̐̕̚̕͘ͅỶ̶̧̧̨̛̱͔̫̦̦̼̟̠̠͎͔̭̀̂̍̈́̈́̓̿̌̎̅͒͆̃́̔͛̓͂̈̈́̋͘͝͝͝O̷̧̡̘͖̩̩̹͎̻̣͖̟̳̲̜̾̈́̑̄̽̊̈́͋̈́̿̈́́͂̉̓̂͘͝Ư̴̢̺̳̖̺̰̱͉̮͓̼̭͉͔͉̥͚̲̺̟̼͇̻̬̳͎̖̞̤̯̩̐̔̆̇͋̏̈́̊̐̊̂̋̈̚͘͜ͅͅ ̵̧̨̨̢̨̛̱̮͓̩̻̖̳̬̪͖͓͖͇̬͈̩̠̬̘̘̬̭͇̪̜̙̓̽̓̈́̈́͊̈̆̒̂͐͂̾̈́͑̍̈́̊͝͝

S̶͉̳͐ͅH̵̱̑̆̑͐͗̃̾̍̇Ȩ̸̳̥͝'̸̟͖͓̳̭͙̇̃͊Ṩ̸̛̪̻̝̭̭̪̔̇̕͘͜ ̷̣͙̭̠͕̗͋̿N̵̍̾̀̔͜͠͝Ȩ̴̨̦͈̹̩̀̾̔͑͆̂̕V̵͕̀̌̂E̴̢̧͔͕͉̗̦̬͒͜R̵̡̯̥͖͈͎̄̐̂̈ ̶̧̤̥̟̯̣̜͇͒̈́͊͂̊͌C̶̺̗͎͇͔͝Ǫ̵̧̱̞̳͖̙̒̓̆̋̈̓̊̈́M̷̧͔̼̭̦͋̎̓̽̈́̚͝Ḭ̵̼̞̬̩͕̰̫̊̓̇̋͘Ň̸̪̙͈͍͕̙͚͓̗̊͗̃̐͠͝G̸̟͍͐ ̴̰͚͇͕̻̜͌͑B̵̟͑̈̀͐̅͑͠͝A̴̭͖̝̻̳͎̞̅̎̊̓̍͑͗͘͜Ç̴͔̳̟̩̲̫͔̕͠ͅK̵̩̳̱̺̳͂͋͊̉̈́̐̕͘͘

S̶͈̼̉͌̈́̓H̷̨̧̳̥̟̮̠̬͌E̸̬͎̮͎̮͕͕̭̥̎͒̄͒͠͠ ̶̧͔̪̽̒̋͐̇̒͆̕͜Ķ̵͍̖̞̈́N̶͖̣̺̹̼͉̘̔̐̚͘͝ͅĘ̵̡̢̱̪̗̩̯͂̂̍̀ͅW̵̱͚̙̋͐͝ ̵̧̛̯̺̱͔̤̀͋̈́̆́͗͠T̵͎̅̆͗̋Ḩ̷̫͈͚͛͐͛͗͊͜I̵̜̗̬̜̜̥̳̯͘S̷̛̜̼͕̓̃̎͐͒͠ ̸̫̖̖̭̣͈͔̘͗͂̋͜͝W̵̥͈̯͒͐͋O̴̢̢͉͍͙͎͐̂͛U̸͍̬͍̟͇͂͐́̊́̓͑͝Ļ̴̪͇̰̻̹̉̓͠D̵̡̋͗̔̽ ̴̢̛̺̙̉̈̇̍̀̉̕̕H̵̬̰̳̜̫̩͚̐̒A̶̰̣̱̬͋̊̆̌P̷̛̖͂̾͒͝P̶͇̱͚̓͊̍̇Ḛ̸͑̎̉Ņ̸̯̬̞̤̍̓̌͒̎̍͘͜͝ͅ

Ȋ̴̢͎͕̦̓̂͆̚̚ͅT̷̥̤̞̘̭̪͍̱̺͑̒̊̑͗́̒'̶͖̜̣̔̿̂̇̈́̊̆̊̑ͅȘ̷̤͉͓͓͚͈̊̃͛̒̔̄̕͝ ̸̨̪͈͖̲͗͐́ͅN̵̢͖͇̘̙̝̖͗̈́Ô̷̠̭͍͖̍̊T̸̤̙̬̎͘ ̸̞̤͈̯͚̑̑̆͋͊Y̶̛̘̣͍͇̻͎̋̃̽͛Ơ̸̮̹̟̱̆̈́̂̽Ú̶̮͂̍͛ͅṘ̸̨͙͉͙̤̭̖̅̎̕ ̴͍̏͐̇͊F̶͈̻̺̦̤̦̞̮͆̽͛́́̀̏Ą̶̻̜̟̰͔͂̿̿̾̿Ŭ̵̫͚̲̜̰̭̿͒̂͑L̸͇̖̫͕̐̾̕͠ͅT̸̼̹͈̳̻͋̈́̆̾͊̋̿̕͜͝

"̴̳͉̟̠̦͚̺̫͈̎̓͑͛̏͆̇͒̔͆̚̕͜M̷̨̡̰̮̲̼̻̖̝̜̜͜͝O̶̫̼̲͕̞͚̯̮͑̉͆͊̾̒Ḿ̵̧͙̜͔̬̫͙̲̔͌̏̉͂͛̐͐͜ͅM̶̗̭̖̥͔̟͇͕̦̰͔̘̱̙̣̅͒̆̄̈̏͝Y̷͉̳͖̗̣̙̠̮̾͗͋̿"̸̩̻̻̠̘̗̥̖̠̣̔͒͆̿͒̆͝ ̵̡̢̨͚̱̞̠̺̮̠̦̗͎̲͑͊Ď̶̲̹̜͗͆́̐̇̉̂͋̅͝Ó̶̤̩̮̜̙̀̅̃̐Ė̴̡̡͚̻̫͈̟̪̮̌̂͜Ş̵̰̩̥̳͇̰̟͕͙͙̘̌̂̉̓͒͌̍̾̒͌̽̏͜͝͝N̵̲̝̟̗̪̄̎̃̆̀͐'̸̞̩͍̱̗̝͚̺̳͙̈́͌͝Ţ̵̢͓̰̟̲̹̟̥͚̥̓͆͗̊̾͗͒̐̕ ̸̢͙̘̦̫͒͝L̷̛̪̥̹̈́̍̉̐̆̋̕͘̚͠ͅǪ̸̘̩̜̾͊͂̇̄͊̓̽̆͌̕V̶̜͇̱̈͒̿̾͆̉̈́̒̂͋̕̕͜͠É̸̢͓͂̈̊̈̀͐͘̚͠ ̵̡̧̝͇͕̜̲̫̫̘̺̟̳̭̗̓͠Ÿ̴͔̲̘̼͓̱͉͍͎̦́Ơ̶̢͔͙͔̳̻̦͇͓̦͎̦̫̇̂̀̔͂̀͘̕͜͠ͅǗ̷̫̹͎̳̚

_D̶̡̨͚͈͎̣̰̳͇͓͎̀O̶̤̲͍͙̙̪͍̜̖̺̲̲̰̱͆̈́̔̐̎̚N̶̢̬̼̩̗̥̠̖̳̏͒̃̓͗̌̑̄̈̽͝ͅ'̵̮̌́T̴̨̙̣̣͖̻͒̂̇͐̏̏͒͠ ̵̨̢̪͉̝͉͔̹̼̞̰̠̥̦̋̋̊̈́̆̉̈́̄̽̓͑̽Ļ̵͕̱̤̣̺̥̍̍͑̔̃̑̍͘Ė̷͈̗̈́Ţ̴̻̮͕͎͎̝̻̘̣̰̹̂ͅ ̴̡̢͍̙͈̣̝̳̘̣͍͇̅̀͋̏͜H̶̬̙̲̭̼̉͐̓̔̂̑̆̕Ë̷͚̗̱̥́̓́̌̃͌̑͘̕͝͠͝ͅŘ̵͎̅͝ ̴̧̡̹͔̫̼̠͖̑͒͆͝I̸̞̙̻̺̼̣̼̲̣͗̓͠Ņ̷̮̱̪͚̥̯̓̈́͐̓̐̔͑̏̽̚͜_

* * *

* * *

Byran awoke with a startled yell, shooting up from his bed and waiting for the terrifying misshapen blurs to turn back into his dark bedroom. As the cold sweat continued to dampen his sheets and clothes, he slowed his panting down. It was just another one of _those_ nights, _fun._ He couldn’t even remember what this nightmare was about or what was strong enough to wake him up. Then the horrible grating buzzing made him jump, _again._ An irritated sigh would come from him, he always hated that door buzzer. Oh well… it was about time to start his morning anyway and-

“Wait, **2 o’ _c_** ** _lock?!”_ **

That’s what the luminescent numbers on his clock radio said... they were also the only thing he could see in his room because the scant amount of sun hadn’t even come up through his windows yet. A really frustrated groan seeped from him as he fumbled around in his wadded up sheets. Today was his longer workday too because _of course_ it would be when some asshole decides to pay him a visit at this ungodly hour. Judging by how rapidly and tirelessly the buzzer was going, it wasn’t going to stop until he answered it: sleep schedule officially broken.

“Ohh, for **_fucks_ ** _sake!”_

He nearly fell out of his bed, he was so groggy and disoriented. It was a journey just to reach his light switch and the reward only made him squint and groan uncomfortably due to his unadjusted booger encrusted eyes. He did two quick things before he left his bedroom. 

First was to make a quick check to his calendar to just be sure today was his ‘longer’ day. 

**Monday, February 6, 1989**

Yep… it was.

Second, was to reach under his bed and pull out his baseball bat. It was going to accompany him to the door, and maybe even accompany the creep harassing him at ‘ _2 in the fucking morning’._

“( _Ohh_ my god.) I’m _comin-_ I’m **_coming already!!_ ** Jesus _Christ!”_

Whoever it was seemed to hear him as he made his way to his door through his barely even furnished apartment. Byran flicked on his main light and finally got a glimpse at the perpetrator for his murdered sleep through the peephole. 

It was a woman… she looked too ‘normal’ to be one of those junkies or hustlers that dressed like hobos. It threw Byran off enough that he actually opened the door to see her face to face. He would be thrown off even further with this unbiased view at her. She had a fair face with long black- no, _dark brown_ hair that ran to her shoulders. This woman was wearing a very expensive looking eggplant colored _leather_ trench coat and was caressing a duffel bag under her arms. 

Despite how unusual this was, Byran still answered the door with the attitude this woman warranted from him.

“Can I **_*HELP*_ ** you?? More importantly, can I help you by saying that it's two in the goddamned morning? What do you _want?”_

“Byran, it’s _me,_ quick.”

That is all she said in this hushed and hurried voice before _inviting herself in_ and easily nudging a stupified Byran back into his apartment before the woman closed the door behind them. At the end of his stammers and confused noises, Byran made sure to bring up the baseball bat.

“ _Uh,_ do _I_ **_KNOW_ **you??”

The woman placed the bag down on the table and parted the bangs from her face and looked Byran dead in his eyes. 

“You _should-_ you’re my half brother.” 

**Stop.**

The brown hair, the light blue eyes, the single solitary mole on her cheek. The same concerned face that would peer over the bars to his crib… that turned from him and ran when the cops came. It was _her._

Byran involuntarily mouthed fragments of the _tsunami_ of thoughts cascading between his ears. 

“ **_ROSE?!”_ **

It was the only word he successfully built with his voice cracking up multiple octaves and leaping a handful of decibels… before his jaw fell for the floor. 

“Yeah, that’s it. Hey Brat, long time no see.”

(He always hated that nickname… and it wasn’t like he needed any more proof that it was her.) The bat slipped from Byran’s hand, and he had a much harder time trying to say something much less spiral actual words instead of dumbfounded noises.

“What’re you _doing_ here!- I mean- What are- where have you _BEEN_ for twelve years- I can’t believe- I thought you were **_dead!_ ** How did you even _find_ me-”

Byran went lightheaded and had to rely on the wall to help keep him standing. Rosemary on the other hand didn’t sound a lick surprised or excited… let alone _‘happy’_ to even see her only sibling. She just fumbled through her things in the bag she brought.

“I can’t explain it right now, I don't have much time so you’re going to have to forgive me for this. **I need your help, you’re the only person I can trust with this.”**

So she was going ‘ _that’_ fast. And Byran’s comprehensive thoughts were stumbling _‘this’_ fast, he understood about ‘ _a little more than_ **_none’_ **of what she said and replied to reflect his current state.

“... **_What??_ ** Wait! Rose, what’s going _on???”_

Instead of an answer to anything he had so miserably asked of her, Rosemary would lift a little bundled up sheet from the largest pocket of her bag. She would bring it over and place it in his arms… he wasn’t in much of a state to disobey anything she did. He looked down into the warm cloth and parted one of the folds and… **There was a sleeping baby in there.**

For the kid’s sake, Byran did not yell or jerk up from shock even though his body _really_ wanted him to. He even managed to yell quietly at her.

“ _What’re you DOING?? Why’d you just gimme a_ **_baby?!_ ** _What the fuck is going on?? Did you STEAL it or something?!_ Jesus _Christ,_ Rose! Take this back! Are you out of your mind?!”

As carefully and smoothly as he could; Byran hurried back to her to make her take it back, but Rose was too occupied closing up her bag and lifting it over her shoulder. 

“No, it’s mine. Nobody is going to come after you for it.”

She didn’t even look him in the eye.

“Who’s the _father??”_

Byran almost wailed, he was so wound up. That was all he could ask even though it certainly didn’t take priority over his long lost sister coming out of the blue… or the fact she had a _child_ or that she gave it to _him._

Rosemary finished what looked like adjusting and checking herself before going to look Byran in the face for the last time. 

“I know this is inconvenient but I need you to take care of her for me. I want to tell you more but I can’t, I don’t have the time.”

Her brother could do more but make the most lost and fearful face he had ever done. Rosemary showed a brief and slightly pained look on _her_ face… but then it was back to what she started with. 

“Listen, they’re going to come and they’re going to ask about me. Just tell them the truth and they’ll leave you alone. _I have to go now._ Good luck Byran. I will find you again later.”

Without a moment afterwards, Rosemary turned around and opened the door. She darted to the left with her light and quick footsteps.

Byran went to give chase but the _baby…_ He turned and doubled back many times before placing the child onto his table and bolting from his door.

“ **_WAAAIT, ROOOSE!-”_ **

He sprinted from his room and looked down the open stairwell but it was too late. She was a ghost, nowhere to be found. 

“- **I DON’T EVEN KNOW HER** **_NAME_** ** _!”_**

Ultimately… Byran had to hurry back to his room, he’d left his door open with an unattended child in full sight. He would have to answer to a couple of disgruntled neighbors peeking from their doors before creeping back to his apartment. He would hear it from his (angry) landlord the next morning. But for now though… 

It was **2:35 AM** when the knocks came from his door. He was the furthest away possible from being able to sleep. He had just been sitting at the table, trying to comprehend what just happened in the meantime while the infant had awoken from his careless yelling and fussed around in her swaddling. 

He threw that freaking door open without even looking through the peephole. Byran had ascended from “completely fucking out of it right now”. And was dazed to the point that the surrelment did a full loop and made everything feel as real as a lucid dream. 

“Yeah I’m here- hold on! Are you back for-”

It wasn’t Rose. There were three gentlemen wearing two piece suits, fanned out in front of the door. The one in the front spoke.

“Byran Rantz?” 

His heart had _just_ climbed out from when it fell into his stomach, it was _just_ drying off and now it slipped back down and made him feel sick again. It was really fucking cold outside and in the cheap unheated corridor of his building, but Byran was _dripping_ with sweat. 

“Bah-buh-b-Byran _Rantz.”_

He pointed at himself with his eyes in danger of falling out of their sockets, they were opened so much. 

The lead suit pulled out a wallet from his coat and opened it up for Byran to see the big badge pinned to it. Byran made a ‘noise?’ that probably wasn’t comprehensible. The guy just continued while keeping his badge out. 

“I’m Agent Noscer with the Department of Homeland Security. I apologize for this very inopportune time, but I assure you that this will be very brief… May we come inside and ask you a couple of things?” 

“ _Oh_ SuRe! Yeah that’s no problem! Come on _in!_ I wasn’t sleeping _Any_ way? I gotta work in three hours and you showed me the _badge_ and- yeah! It’s fine.” 

He was about to cry, the baby was already starting to. They came in, and shut the door behind them, moving Byran over to the one chair he had in his living room to sit him down. He was wheezing and getting lightheaded from it.  
  


“Hey, take it _easy,_ Byran. You’re not in any kind of trouble.”

He couldn’t help but be unsure of everything that was going on in his life, _especially_ that statement… he took notice to the red and blue flashing lights glaring through his window. 

“I’m _not?_ ”

He squeaked meekly and saw what the other two men were doing. One of them was checking out the baby on the table… even looking like he was trying to get her to calm down by making gentle noises. The other one was searching around the place and was about to head to Byran’s room. 

“Wait!”

He lurched up and got the attention of everyone in the room. The terror in him was at full mast and with everything he had, Byran spoke out in a ‘calm’ voice.

“My room is on the left, if you’re going there: could you p-pplease bring me my pill bottles off my nightstand?”

No response but some queer looks at him, he swallowed and tried to control his breathing.

“I-I have to t-take em in the mornin for _stresss_. If it’s not a problem.”

The one agent just nodded slightly before vanishing into the hallway and into a door. Agent Noscer went and knelt beside Byran, looking him in the face for that talk. 

“We are trying to get ahold of your sister, Rosemary… Did she pay you a visit recently?” 

Even if he wasn’t a blubbering soaking mess, the thing on his table would kind of make it impossible not to tell them the truth. Oh wait, didn’t she tell him to tell them the truth? Was this who ‘them’ were? Is that what she was talking about? Oh, god! What was going on?!

He just nodded at the man. 

“Oh yeah, she did? She came and left her kid with you? Like a little daycare? That’s good, how long ago was this?”

“H-h-half an hour… n-not even. Shh-she was only here for. A minute.”

The agent wrote something down into his little notepad, his friend came out from the hallway and spoke.

“She’s not on the premises.”

Noscer nodded at him and glanced to Byran.

“Mr Rantz here said that she left about half an hour ago.”

“Mnh.”

“What was that?”

Byran tried to clear his throat to say something, but he was still having a lot of trouble.

“MMnhm- iii-t’s nothing. It’s just-”

Barely audible whisper.

“-Mr Rantz was my father.”

Somehow Noscer picked all that up and actually sounded like he cared.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

  
  


His friend held up an orange pill bottle and shook it for Byran to look at.

“Are these what you were looking for?”

Byran just nodded again at him and mouthed a little bit.

“(Thank you)” 

The man would take one of the empty glasses by the kitchen sink and fill it with water before bringing it and the pills to Byran. As he took one capsule out and swallowed it, Noscer asked him another question.

“Did she happen to share with you where she was heading out or… did you see where she got off to?”

Byran swallowed a gulp of water and sighed, starting to regain some kind of composure.

“ _No._ None of that. She came, put her child in my arms and just- _left_ before I could even ask what her _name_ was. I didn’t even hear her start up a _car_ or even see which stairwell she went down… I _dunno.”_

The one agent who had successfully quieted the baby had joined the conversation, primarily speaking to his companions. 

“Yeah, that lines up: she left her car in the tenant lot. Keys and everything just _sitting_ there… she must have gone on foot or taken the train.”

“Did you contact the transit authority?”

“They’re already on the lookout: brown hair, purple coat?”

As they muttered to each other, Byran felt bold enough to ask his own question.

“What... _What did she do...?”_

The room went silent. It was only after minutes of excruciating doubt watching the three men glance and speak some wordless language to each other that Noscer would answer him. Byran expected to be told something along the lines of "It’s none of your business" or "That’s a federal secret".

“She didn’t do _anything_ yet. We just believe that she is _about_ to do something that we need to know about is all… and that is about as much as I can tell you.” 

Well Byran could be thankful that he got _that_ much of an answer. 

“Well alright, we’ll get out of your hair now. Thank you for cooperating with us and here-”

He slipped a card into Byran’s still shaking hands.

“-call this number if you come into contact with her again.”

Just like Rosemary, the men came and left just as fast while leaving him with a thousand questions. Furthermore like her, Byran would call out with a question to them as they walked down the building corridor.

The men came and left fast, leaving with with a thousand questions just like Rosemary did. Furthermore like her, Byran called out to them as they stamped down the dim corridor with the same kind of question.

“Wait, what about the _child?”_

“That’s not our problem. You have a good morning, sir.” 

And that was that, they left and soon after: the flashing lights would drive off and leave Byran ‘alone’. When the excitement died down, Byran took a deep breath: brought his empty glass over to the kitchen sink… and promptly threw up. 

The funny thing was, Rosemary told him that she would come back for him later... **B** **ut he never saw her again.**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	11. 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But who can we point at?

“C’mon, pick up pick up pick up  **pick** **_up!”_ **

Byran had heard the voice of the answering machine six times by now, he would not take it well if he heard it a  _ seventh  _ time. The last ring passed and-

“Byran? What’s the matter?” 

His aunt was on the other side.

“Ohh  _ THANK  _ you.  _ Fi _ nally! Did you get my messages?”

“No, I haven’t, I’ve been asleep. it’s five _AM!_ What’s going on? Are you okay?” 

“Uhh,  _ not really!  _ **_No!”_ **

“Why’re you shouting?- What’s that  _ noise _ in the background?”

“Oh  _ that?  _ That’s ahh. That was dropped off here today. Whattayou  _ think _ it is? What-does it  _ sound  _ like?”

“... Is that a  _ baby _ crying?”

“ _ Yeah.  _ It  _ is.” _

“Where  _ are _ you??” 

“ _ Home…”  _

“Why do you have a  _ baby???  _ Who the hell gave you a baby?? Did they  _ give  _ it to you?? Did you  **_TAKE_ ** it??? Byran, what in god’s name is going  _ on?!”  _

“I’ll tell ya- You uhm. You’ll never  _ guess  _ who decided to  _ drop by!...  _ At two  _ AM.  _ You wanna know? It was uhm,  _ Rosemary!” _

“... _ Who…?”  _

This was where Byran’s panicked but also casual sounding speech ended. He was back to honestly panicking. He snapped.

“ _Rosemary_ Rosemary, Rosemary!! You _know,_ my half _sister?!_ Ran off? Thought she was **_dead??_** Rosemary **_RANTZ?_** You know, _THAT_ Rosemary?? _She_ showed up at my door!” 

“ **_What?!_ ** She  **_did??_ ** She’s  **_THERE??”_ **

“Uh  _ no _ , actually! Get  _ this.  _ She came in, told me to ‘ _ Take care of her kid’  _ and then  _ ran off  _ into the night!”

“...You’re  _ kidding  _ me.”

“Oh  _ no, _ I’m not. But here’s the ‘best’ part! Right after she leaves me with a crying infant, I get a knock on my door- yeah? The  **Department of Homeland** **_Security!”_ **

  
  


“Oh my god… Are you  _ okay??”  _

“Oh ‘ _ yeah’,  _ they were after  _ her,  _ not  _ me!  _ They came, asked me some questions about her while I was having a freaking heart attack, and freakin  _ left _ just like that!” 

“ _ Ohh  _ my god. What is she  _ involved  _ in? Did they tell you?”

“ _ No!  _ They didn’t! They just told me they wanted to ‘talk’ to her and that’s it!... I’ve been having a freak attack tryin to call you since like three AM. I don’t know what to do here- you can hear the freakin kid is  _ cryin.  _ I don’t got any baby food or milk for it-  _ she didn’t leave me with anything-  _ I got  _ work  _ in a freakin hour and I’m  **_freaking OUT!!!”_ **

“Byran,  _ Byran!  _ Calm down!  _ Listen to me.  _ Take a  _ deep breath,  _ **and caalm down for me, alright? Take it** **_easy.”_ **

He showed a want to follow her advice, Byran sounded awfully out of breath. He tried to lower his voice between his very audible pants. 

“I know, I know… I’m trying to, it’s just really hard when I can barely hear myself  _ think.  _ I’m just scared, I don’t know what to  _ do,  _ Aunt Loisa.”

“Okay. We’re gonna work through this together, alright? Don’t worry, sweetie. I’m here for you. Let’s work on one thing at a time. The first thing is,  _ can _ you take off from work today?”

“ _ No,  _ I really can’t. Not  _ today,  _ I’m already covering for someone… there’s no chance of that. How fast can you get here?”

“Byran, I don’t think I can head there today at  _ all-” _

He interrupted.

“Uhh, that’s gonna be a  _ problem,  _ I can’t just  _ leave _ this kid alone here all  _ day!  _ What’m I s’posed to  _ do??  _ You gotta  _ help me _ on this!”

“I  _ can’t  _ just up and leave,  _ Byran!”  _

“No? You can’t just-”

There was this fierce and pained sounded growl along with the sound of Byran hitting himself in the head with the phone numerous times. 

“Byran,  _ enough!  _ Relax!” 

At least.

“How’m I supposed to do that when I’m up shit creek without a paddle?! You’re not coming and I gotta leave a freakin baby in my apartment for over eight  **_HOURS_ ** without any  _ food!  _ And that’s  _ another _ thing! What’m I supposed to  _ feed  _ her with?! I don’t got any  _ money!”  _

“You don’t have  _ anything  _ to buy food with?” 

“ **_No!_ ** I put everything I had so I could pay the fuck’n  _ RENT!  _ I ain’t gonna  _ see _ another dollar till  _ friday!”  _

  
  


“When do you have to go to work?”

For some reason, that response out of the blue  _ really _ set him off. Byran made a shrill chirping noise before his voice exploded. 

“ **_SIX!!_ ** **GODDAMNED FUCKING** **_SIX!!!!”_ **

* * *

He would hate himself every time he remembered this moment, she was only trying to  _ help. _ Byran never meant to blow up on her, he was never actually angry at his aunt… just frustrated and scared. She would hold this against herself too… and the baby never stopped crying. They had both done their best and there was nothing more they could do… it wasn’t fair. Everything was going just fine until  **_Rosemary Rantz._ **

Rosemary Rantz…

**_Rose Rantz._ **

R.Rantz.

Ŗ̷̂Ơ̵̲͍̰̫̜͚͋͛͑̃̈̇̄̃̈́̽̕͜S̸̨̨̢̨̜̜̘̯̻̻̰͙̀̔̎̑͆̽͗̿Ḙ̵̖̌̉̂͛M̴̧̞͉̠̰̰͓̥̥̖͖̊̿̌͌̈́̅̅͒̽̌̾̕͝ͅA̵͖̗̩̮̝̿̀͜͜ͅR̶̢̰̯̘͈̟͗͗̌͛̽̚Y̷̬͎̠̬̘̘͍̭̗͓̙̹͙͒͊͒͐̃̇̇̆̐͆͊́ͅ ̸̡͙̯̲̲̽͑̀̃̈́̕ͅR̵̖͎͍̼̳̻̼̺͕̎͐̾̓̾̈́͒̿̎͜Ả̴̡̭̠͉̖̯̳͍̬͎͍͔̑͒̈́͆͆̊́͌̓̂͠N̶̠̅̽͂͐͐͒̄̎̈́͒͊T̶̖̖̯̣͇̟̋͝Z̵̡̨̻̣͕̣̏̓̽̒͐̎͆͝

  
  
  
  


**M Y N A M E I S . . .** “-Rosemary Rantz. Do you have a name too?”

“Me? I am just  _ Toriel,  _ child.” 

The jacket was a dead giveaway,  _ how could she FORGET???  _ She was one of the last humans who fell and was perhaps the most  _ peculiar one:  _ asking so many questions, scribbling them down into her little notebook and pushing her glasses up. She  _ wanted _ to find this place, she trekked up Mt Ebott and fell through the cursed portal knowing exactly what she was doing.  _ She was Brainz’s SISTER.  _

“ _ Wow,  _ this abode has such a stark contrast to the formations and ruins outside, did  _ you _ build this? It has the makings of a normal household and everything!” 

This human, she was so  _ frantic _ almost. She would ask Toriel something and by the time the old monster would even begin to open her mouth, the human would scurry up to something else with  _ another  _ question. Her hands never stopped writing on those pages she carried. Toriel had still been working on the fact that Rosemary came here on  _ purpose??  _ She watched the human stroll up to her bookshelf and begin pawing at some of the tomes. 

“English literature mixed with ancient monster vernacular? You can read  _ English  _ writing? (Well I guess that’s obvious because you’re  _ speaking  _ to me in English, but still) When did you learn the English language and  _ how??  _ Considering your contact with the surface world is.  _ Nonexistent.” _

She asked all sorts of questions.

  * How have you managed to survive in this limited environment?
  * Is it true that _humans_ were capable of practicing magic long ago?
  * How does magic ‘work?’
  * What determines how you take your form? Is it inspired from your surroundings? You look so similar to a capri species but I bet you have nothing in common with them.



A modestly nervous grin crept up Toriel’s face. 

“Child please, slow  _ down!  _ You must be so…  _ excited??  _ But may I invite you to sit down? Treat you to my homemade pie? I could teach you everything you wish to  _ learn. _ ”

Something to consider was how Toriel called  _ everybody  _ a ‘child’ even when they were no longer considered one by their standards. Rosemary was far beyond this point with the emergence of lines on her face and strands of gray hair in her otherwise brown flow. The jacket she wore looked a fair bit  _ faded  _ and cracked, its age was also affecting it. But back to ‘child’, it wasn’t a device merely to belittle them or indulge in the technicality that she was far older than them and their age would be considered juvenile compared to hers. To her it was a hopeful invitation, her arms were open to everyone and she would imagine that someone would wish to stay with her for once… Rosemary would not be one of those people. The human hadn’t stayed one night in Toriel’s accommodations and she was already asking about the further underground. 

“So tell me, Toriel. What are the rest of your people like? Did many diverse monsters manage to make it here? Or did you have to repopulate?... I suppose what I’m asking is:  _ are there other monsters like you?”  _

That was another thing, Rosemary knew just about everything about the war and how they ended up here… she  _ even  _ shared things that Toriel herself didn’t know. 

“It was the Catholic  _Romans_ who sought to destroy you, right? They took the duality of monster and man as an affront to their church and reserved an entire campaign to the first crusades to ‘ _ clean’ _ the earth of the creatures that stole souls from God. Isn’t that right?”

There were only a few monsters who could even hold this discussion with Rosemary… Toriel made the mistake of telling her that. 

“Is this how you access the rest of the kingdom? Are you the appointed  _ gatekeeper  _ or something? You don’t seem to have any guards or anything.” 

Of course, Toriel expressed her distress at what the human wanted to do: she bargained with promises of more stories and even  _ begged  _ her not to leave. Toriel would tell Rosemary about the dangers beyond the massive doors: the ‘war’ that the king had brought back from the dust, the perils laying to spring on her, even the fact that she was not the first human to come by and that she had very little chance to become the first human to actually leave the underground.

But like every other human, it would end with Toriel saying ‘goodbye’ and never seeing them again. For Rosemary, her curiosity was too strong to keep caged here. She came to this tragic place on a quest for knowledge, even promising Toriel that she would share her findings and gain the aid of the outside world. 

“Don’t you worry about  _ me,  _ I can take care of myself.”

The human would reach into one of her pockets and bring out this pink horned thing that she wore on her knuckles. Her weapon she would defend herself with. 

“It runs in the family.”

* * *

She said with a bittersweet sounding chuckle and that became the last time that Toriel would see her… at least in  _ her _ perspective. 

  
  
  


“Rosemary Rantz…” 

Toriel would repeat that name to herself until it felt about right to stop as she came to exist once more outside of the memories. 

“ _ Rosemary. Rantz… Byran Rantz…  _ What are the odds?” 

What were the odds, indeed. That she would be the  _ last  _ human to fall down and feed the paranoid war drums underground, that her  _ brother  _ would fall down too years later. 

“What are the _ odds _ -”

That Rosemary who was apparently  _ so  _ bent on finding the underground, that  _ it  _ had something to do here. That _ it _ was the reason the human government pursued her… considering the response the discovery of the underground warranted from them. What would the odds be that she was  _ so  _ driven to this that she would abandon her own baby and struggling brother, that Rosemary would run away from her own  _ family  _ just like she did all those years ago.

_ What  _ were the odds that  _ maybe  _ just  **_MAYBE;_ ** Brainz discovering the underground  _ wasn’t _ an accident. He could have been on the same trail that she did years before him but with none of her intentions… only with the desire to find her. What a blow to his heart it must have been to find that she had been murdered  _ EVEN  _ if she was a terrible person in the end for what she did.  _ What are the odds that every girl in this damned family is a terrible person who turns flighty before age 4?! _

_ “Okay,  _ I need to slow down. I need to  _ calm _ . Down. I have just absorbed a  _ lot  _ of information and I need to-Oh  _ HOW can she  _ **_do_ ** _ this?!” _

Suddenly, Toriel took a hard landing and found herself face down on a particularly unforgiving floor. She found it necessary to pound against it with her claws, the very  _ strong  _ feelings incited in her were what would control her for the time being. 

“How was I to know that the ‘explorer’ that found her way to my home was actually the worst kind of mother imaginable?! That she had the capacity to do something like this and cause her only brother pain with her own  _ baby??” _

Toriel realized she had to just keep quiet for a moment. She took a deep breath and-

“ _ WHY??”  _

She was crying again, she didn’t even realize she was but there were more tears coming down her cheeks. Toriel forcefully rubbed her eyes and groaned miserably. 

“ _ Ohhh, _ god…” 

A good sniffle break was had and she would bring herself back to ‘normal’ with a little more weight to bear. 

“Brainz never mentioned a  _ child…  _ He did not mention his sister or his aunt but this is nothing  _ similar…  _ He was utterly alone.”

It was a horrible thought, as if Toriel didn’t have enough of those to last her for two lifetimes. It was a horrible thought, but the fact was that this was the first and only time she had seen this child. 

“ _ No, _ he would-  _ Byran  _ is a good boy… At least he would not do such a thing to this child, right?”

Well, it was either he would follow in his sister’s footsteps or something terrible ends up happening to the kid. Toriel would have to see it for herself, she had the best seat in the house though: laying face first on the floor of Byran’s apartment. When Toriel looked out from her own self, she would realize that Byran and Loisa were sitting down beside her. The child was nowhere to be seen. Byran looked like he crawled out of a morgue, toe tag and all.  **_DEAD_ ** . Tired

‘What’s a morgue?’

It’s where humans go when they’re dead.  _ The point is Byran looks like  _ **_shit, OK_ ** ? 

Toriel grimaced at herself. Her head was still not in a good place and she would struggle to keep it together and under control enough to hear what was going on. 

Aunt Loisa was gently massaging his shoulder.

“You put her to sleep? That’s good.”

  
  


“Yeah yeah… she’s uh- I made a little cot for her on my bed, she’s fine. How did you get out of work though…?”

  
  


“I told my boss this was a family emergency, he gave me the rest of the week.”

“That’s good to hear, thank you.”

Byran droned, his head and eyes pointed at the floor. 

“Have you eaten?”

“No… I still  _ got _ stuff, I just haven’t been able to think about food without getting sick. I made sure  _ she _ did.”

“Really? How?”

She wasn’t as impressed as she was concerned… because of  _ course _ she would think that he did something bad like  _ stealing food  _ or mugging someone in broad daylight. With how Byran answered her though, it sounded like he would’ve  _ preferred _ if he did that. 

“I uh…”

He smacked his lips and huffed.

“I went around my work asking my coworkers if they could lend me a couple bucks. Told em I’d pay em back with interest. Didn’t even have to tell em I was desperate, they just figured I was… so  _ yeah,  _ got enough and left work early- Got someone to cover me, I owe him big time- went to the store and picked up a couple formulas…  _ yep.” _

  
  


“Byran…”

She started, trying to be comforting. He interrupted her though, Byran wasn’t done talking, done sounding absolutely disgraced and disgusted with himself.

“ _What kind of a man_ has to go around like a dirty beggar to the people he works with? That he can’t even provide for his life so he has to _leech_ off of others? What kind of a man _does_ that? **_My father would be so disappointed in me…”_**

“Byran,  _ stop it.  _ You did  _ good.  _ You didn’t have any other choice and you  _ still _ acted responsibly.  **_I’m_ ** proud of you, not a day goes by that I think about how hard you work and how proud I am. To me, you’re the  _ only _ one from that house who has a good head and a good heart in him.”

Any other day and this would have turned into an argument over their opinions on Baitren. In this case, Byran just nodded dolefully and rubbed his tired eyes. 

“I got erh, the formula on the counter there-”

He languidly pointed to the carton on the counter.

“-I don’t know how long it’ll last me… it was really expensive for no reason and I- I don’t know, how often are you supposed to feed a baby? Is it three times a day? I got diapers too but I’m afraid to even think about that.” 

“... Do you really think you can take care of this child?”

“What other option do I  _ have?” _

But the answer to that was already slithering up his back, the cold reality of it made him shiver and jump up from his seat. He was borderline outraged at his aunt for what he was thinking about.

“ **_NNo._ ** I  _ ain’t  _ gonna do that.” 

“ _ Byran,  _ that may be the best thing to  _ do _ for her!”

“I said  **_no!_ ** I ain’t givin her away to no goddamned orphanage! Rosemary asked me to take care of her and that’s what I’m gonna do!”

“You have  _ no _ way to provide for her  _ and  _ yourself. You have  _ no _ idea how to take care of her- and how do you think you’re going to be able to care for her when you have to go to  _ work.  _ I hope you didn’t think you can just  _ leave  _ her here all day till you get  _ back.  _ You can’t do that.”

Didn’t Byran already bring this up? 

“ _ No  _ **_shit!-”_ **

Yep, he did. Byran snapped at his aunt but quickly lowered his voice so he wouldn’t wake up the child in the other room. He probably realized he was yelling at Loisa, but he felt he had a right to.

“-Do you think I’m  _ that _ much of an  _ idiot??” _

“ _ No,  _ I didn’t mean-”

“ _ What?  _ You didn’t mean  **_what?_ ** That I’m just as reckless as your  _ sister?  _ Is that it?”

That was pretty uncalled for, this argument would spiral into something mean and abrasive for both sides. Byran’s relationship with his aunt was showing more and more signs of deterioration and stress. Toriel would have just seen this as him being needlessly cold to someone who just wanted to help… but she had been with him for so long: that she understood why he was so upset. If Loisa was so ‘proud’ of him, then why did she never believe in him? Why didn’t  _ anybody  _ believe in him? 

‘I did not believe in Brainz…’

Toriel was wondering if she was still on the path to feeling even worse for what she did to him. The fact he had a child thrust into his care, already pushed that feeling up a mile. The realization that his ‘terrible’ father could have been the only person who actually believed in him… was a hard pill to swallow. Maybe that was why Byran thought of him so fondly. 

Back to Byran though… it seemed the situation was on its way down from the tension. Byran gave his stance on the matter.

“I’m going to figure something out, and that’s  _ regardless  _ of if you’re going to  _ help  _ me.” 

“Of course I will… I am always going to be here for you. Sweetie… The last thing I wanted to do was hurt your feelings, I just worry for you so much.” 

He sighed, and the room was suddenly plunged into darkness. 

I̵̞͗ ̴̭́c̴̛͜a̵̛͜n̷̝̍ ̸̟̈H̴̐͜A̴̧Ṅ̷͜D̷̡͊L̴͚̈́E̸͇͐ ̸̤́i̶̧͠t̴̘

**_Ḯ̴̭ ̷͚̒d̵̰́ȍ̷͓n̵̳͌'̷̮̚t̷̮̔ ̶̗̋n̴̹͛e̶͖͂ḙ̶̐d̴͖͆ ̴̬̈́ỳ̶͈o̶̼̔ủ̸͎,̸͔̓ ̶̝̆I̵̛͙ ̴̲͝d̶͔̎o̶̢͠n̷͈͊'̸̧t̸̗̽ ̷̬̕n̵̗̔ę̷̈́e̸̪͘d̸͍͗ ̵̲̏A̵̫̚N̵̺Ỷ̸̙B̸͕̆Ǫ̷Ḏ̸̀Ÿ̴̤́_ **

**_Ḭ̸̈́ ̶̢̾j̶̘̆u̶̟͐s̷̟͌ţ̴̐ ̴̳̓w̴͖̔â̵̝n̵͇̂t̶̼̉e̶̛̞d̵͔͠ ̴̪̌t̸̝͒ô̵͚ ̵͍͠Ḫ̷̓Ĕ̸͍L̶͔̇P̷̘̌_ **

* * *

“ _ Fuck!” _

In that same hushed voice, sitting in his same bedroom, at the same desk with the  _ same  _ mountain of papers all spotted with red ink. There was even the same calendar

**FRI|SEP-28**

**1989**

***BILLS**

Toriel would watch Byran work himself up in the exact same way as before. She had been brought back to a previous memory, but why? What new was to be shown to her? As before, Byran made a distressed sounding grunt at the end of the hour, all the papers fell to the floor… but this time there was something  _ different  _ about them. They were all full of numbers and the works that Toriel had no idea what they meant, but on some of the papers there were words that suddenly made sense to her. 

**PAYMENT**

**INTEREST**

**LOAN**

**DEADLINE**

**DUE**

The worst part was that she knew what all those words meant and had no clue why. Actually no, the  _ worst  _ part was that Byran was apparently up to his neck in  **DEBT** (Another word right there). After the papers had fallen and he had his moment to wallow in all the stress, Byran looked over his shoulder… Not at Toriel, not at his empty room. Now, in the light of everything: Byran took one scared look at the crib next to his bed. He looked at it and back to bills, and his next course of actions were planned. Toriel had already seen him up and leave, but she never saw what he did exactly… she would now. 

He would stamp down a barely lit stairwell made of concrete and rusted metal until he pushed open a door on the ground level. Out of the apartment building and into a gloomy night where he could see his own breath. Byran would make his way around the feet of a town, densely packed buildings with sidewalks and asphalt instead of lawns in front of them. Toriel feared all the things that grumbled and zoomed past Byran, they were just automobiles and had no intention of running him over or intruding on his space. She was justified though in her anxieties, the only vehicles she came to know were police vehicles with their terrible lights or the massive military trucks that came to kill her. 

Byran walked and walked until his building was no longer visible over his shoulder, and then he walked some more to his eventual stop. A place that was lit up inside unlike most of the buildings he passed, there were metal shelves inside as far as Toriel could see.

**VAL-4-YOU HARDWARE**

From what transpired inside: Toriel deducted that this was a merchant of sorts. Byran gave just about all the money he was carrying to the vendor in exchange for a battery powered torch and a shovel which he carried over his shoulder for the rest of his walk. Hours passed before he would stop again. (It didn’t  _ FEEL  _ like hours, it  _ was _ hours. Byran trekked to a point where there was nothing but road and seas of trees accompanying him from both sides. Like his apartment building: the town became absent from behind him.) There was now  _ one _ defining thing about where he would decide to stop. On the side of the large road, a fairly sizable green sign took his attention. It had big white letters that seemed to  _ glimmer _ with the bright gaze of each passing vehicle. 

**EBOTT VALLEY** **||** **EXIT 197b > > >**

**^ ^ ^ 25 MILES ^ ^ ^||(Hospital ½ MILES)**

**(Mt Ebott) ||(Gruney Penitentiary 4 MILES)**

  
  


Byran decided at the sign that he would climb over the concrete wall separating the large network from the wilderness. This is where the flashlight debuted, it would soon become the only source of light with the exception of the moon and stars above… Admittedly, Toriel found herself often distracted by the sight above her. She had seen this vast ‘landscape’ only in illustrations and written depictions, she never fathomed she would be able to discern if they were telling the truth… and they  _ weren’t. _ They weren’t lying though, they did their best to describe something that utterly took all of her words from her. Had Byran ever had the opportunity to sit down and appreciate it? 

He certainly wasn’t doing so right now, keeping his focus on the ground. The wild thicket rustled and cracked from under him as he went deeper away from civilization. 

‘What is he  _ doing?’ _

Moseying through the dark woods with a flashlight illuminating his path. He’d done this before, only not nearly as slow or relaxed as this… Toriel thought she could recall dogs. 

‘Wait, what am I thinking about?’ 

Whatever it was, Toriel would have no more of an idea what was going on… then came the structure. There was this  _ ginormous  _ tower silhouetted against the twilight, but it didn’t obstruct it too much. The thing was made entirely out of metal beams crossed together countless times. It had arms on the top that held huge cables which spanned forever in the air. It was the strangest thing she had seen so far on the surface. It looked  _ ominous  _ too in the dark, there was something so unnatural to it. Byran looked up at the thing too but he didn’t stop, instead he finally deviated from his straightforward path and began looking around spontaneously to all the trees that surrounded the building. 

Toriel was  _ certainly _ reserved to watch this one, she was never going to figure the connection here or even  _ try _ to. It was among the more nerve wracking moments watching Byran go around, shining that light of his all over the ground without saying or telegraphing what the hell he was trying to do.

Something held his light in its place, it also took hold of Byran. It was just a tree, not particularly interesting or unique compared to the thousands of others around… except for the roots. The roots conformed in a crescent like shape, one arm of them formed a vague  **‘3’** or an  **‘E’,** maybe even an  **‘M’** depending how Toriel looked at it. Nature was really fascinating, she always found it to be interesting… So did Byran apparently. He was  _ so _ interested in it that he placed his flashlight down and immediately struck the ground before the roots with his shovel. 

The ground must have hardened from the cold, because Byran would make a wheezing grunt every time he dug into the soil. He dug into the ground with such  _ effort _ and intent that Toriel  _ really _ wanted to know what he was thinking…

‘Actually… if I am inside of his reminiscence. Why am I unable to perceive his thoughts? I have  _ so _ many questions right now, but I believe this one may frost the  _ pie…  _ gosh’ 

“Fh _ ck..” _

He was back to swearing under his breath. Byran shunted out an expletive with every aggravated thrust into the growing hole. 

“C _ ’Mnh!  _ Gdammit!, Sunova  _ Btch! Uhn!”  _

Byran was stabbing the dirt and stomping the tool to dig it in even deeper… his efforts got to the point that they were furious and then… 

**_*KLUNK*_ **

He stopped all of his anger for a gasp. Toriel would gasp too. 

Byran threw down the shovel and rearmed himself with the flashlight that had been casting his deforming shadow onto the trees further from him. He pointed the thing into the now sizable hole and huddled real close. The way he was crouched though, he and his shadow were in the way and Toriel couldn’t see a thing. She just had to wait for him to finish clawing at the dirt on his hands and knees. At last, with a long grunt of strained effort, Byran dragged something up from the earth. It was a suitcase plastered with mud and grime. Toriel’s bewilderment only went through a growth spurt.

Byran took no time in planting the suitcase on the ground and unfastening the really stiff latches on it. He took even  _ less  _ time opening the thing up real wide for him and the flashlight to see… Toriel too, but he probably didn’t know that. 

Everything inside was wrapped up with this barely clear plastic sheet, Toriel couldn’t make anything out except for the manilla envelope sitting atop the bundle. Byran would start by opening up the envelope and pulling out a yellowed sheet of paper. It was almost impossible to actually make out what it said, but Toriel had no trouble reading it… the handwriting was stiff and strict… almost as if a typewriter had created it.

_ Rose and Byran _

_ I hope that you will never read this letter, but you’ve gone and dug this up like I told you to do if anything ever happens to me. Enclosed are supplies and allies you can contact meant to help both of you get through whatever hardships arise. Please, whatever it takes: go far away from here: as far away as you can go. The last thing I want is for anything to happen to you two… _

_ With that said, I am deeply sorry that I have put you in harm’s way. I never wanted to decide your lives for you, but I just couldn’t find a way to ensure I could give you what you deserved. I’m terrified something will happen and you will not be prepared to deal with it. At any rate, I want the both of you to stick together. You are each other’s most valuable assets, and you need to realize this. Please, you are all each other has. Your mother doesn’t mean to be like she is, she can’t help it. It is my fault that she ended up like this and I know I will never be able to forgive myself for that.  _

_ This world is a cruel and terrible place that thrives on the weak. Don’t let it get to you, you are so much stronger than it and you are so much stronger than I am.  _

_ In case I never had the chance to express this to you. I love you both.  _

_ -Dad  _

  
  


Byran held that paper for a lot longer than he would have needed to read it. When he was finished with it, he slowly and carefully folded it up and slipped it into his back pocket. He sighed with a quiver in his breath before swallowing something hard and opening his mouth.

“Thank you, sir.” 

If this wasn’t the most conflicting confounding thing… 

Onto the plastic, Byran unfolded the protective lining and finally brought the contents to the light… All the fledgling heartache for Baitren turned into hard dread when Toriel made out the very first thing. The first thing that Byran picked up.

**COLT COMMANDER 45**

Yes it was, it was  _ THAT  _ one. Byran inspected and ran his other hand all over the colt hunk of metal and violence. He even checked to see if it was loaded with ammunition (It was). There were three more magazines inside of the case meant for the gun, all loaded with human bullets. He put the gun aside for now and brought out the next item: a brick of consolidated human money. These were the same ones that Toriel saw earlier,  _ this  _ is where he got them from… This time though, Toriel knew that Byran counted $45,000 in stacks of $100 and $50 bills. Again, she couldn’t figure for the (un)life of her  _ HOW  _ she knew this, but she just  _ did  _ and it wasn’t making this any less STRESSFUL. There was more to pull out: another envelope, this time it was just a generic white envelope you would use when mailing a letter. It had the words “ **TRUSTED CONTACTS”** written on it in permanent marker. 

Next? More  _ paper,  _ this one was a much bigger sheet that had been folded up a good number of times to get it to fit into the small space. When Byran straightened it out… it was a  _ map.  _ All of the streets and crossings he had traversed were mere lines and simple squares on the large illustration… there were  _ multiple  _ red  **X’s** on a few places just around the edges of the map. A crudely drawn  _ legend  _ was made on the back with a similar red ink.

_ X = Primary Wares  _

**_X_ ** _ = Explosive ordinance & Infantry equipment _

_ x = Action house _

**_(X) =_ ** _ Killbox  _

  
  


This was bad. That was all Toriel could discern from the cryptic words. This was  _ bad  _ and it also lined up with the previous-future? Memories she already experienced. Charles Rhattener’s name and number would be inside that white envelope and that warehouse full of guns was on this map somewhere. This ‘present’ from his father was the start of everything wicked, as if he couldn’t deform his own son enough when he was  _ alive.  _ Byran hadn’t the judgement to know that this was not a  _ good  _ thing!

But wait, there was more to this cache of misfortunes. One final thing still sleeping under the plastic sheets. 

“Whooaah…”

Byran showed a subtle sense of surprise to it as he brought it out. It was a  _ big _ black knife with a worn leather grip, the kind of knife you could cut  _ vines _ with. 

“No.  _ Way….”  _

He gawked at the thing and even sailed it back and forth through the biting air. Byran caressed the blade with both hands and spun it over to get a good look at the leather. 

“There it is…”

He found the three letters still holding their place into the grip.

“Baitren. Arvold. Rantz.”

**B.A.R**

To him, the meaning of those initials would seamlessly transform into “Byran Andrew Rantz”. This knife was the torch that he was picking up from his father’s-

‘ _ Wait…  _ This. There is no possible way this can  _ be.’ _

Oh but there _was._ Toriel could try to doubt it until the cows came home, but she would never escape the fact that she had seen that _exact_ same knife before and wondered oh so many times what those three letters actually **_meant._**

**_Chara never told her…_ **

‘ **_AAAUGH!!_ ** **My.** **_Head!’_ **

Toriel crumpled to her knees with both of her claws pressing into the top of her head which felt like something had split it open with a battle axe. The pain worsened with no end or break and began loosening her presence in this world. As she slipped away, Byran remained still: appraising that damned  _ blade. How many times had she had to tell that child not to sleep with it, how many times had they HURT themselves with that WEAPON? Why did they find so much comfort in it, why was it HERE? _

The pain became unimaginable, surpassing the possible boundaries of how agonizing it could be in reality. The last thing Toriel could make out before she succumbed to it was the  _ sirens.  _

**They were all already on their way, bringing their wicked cries and harsh strobes to the world around them. It wouldn’t be much longer now, there wasn’t much left to cross….**


	12. 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ᴴᵘˢʰ, ˡᶦᵗᵗˡᵉ ᵇᵃᵇʸ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ˢᵃʸ ᵃ ʷᵒʳᵈ   
> ᴾᵃᵖᵃ'ˢ ᵍᵒⁿⁿᵃ ˢᵗᵉᵃˡ ʸᵒᵘ ᵃ ᵐᵒᶜᵏᶦⁿᵍ ᵇᶦʳᵈ.
> 
> ᴬⁿᵈ ᶦᶠ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᵐᵒᶜᵏᶦⁿᵍ ᵇᶦʳᵈ ᵃᶦⁿ'ᵗ ᵏᵉᵉⁿ  
> ᴾᵃᵖᵃ'ˢ ᵍᵒⁿⁿᵃ ᵐᵃᵏᵉ ᵐᵒⁿᵉʸ ᵠᵘᶦᵗᵉ ᵘⁿᶜˡᵉᵃⁿ.
> 
> ᴬⁿᵈ ᶦᶠ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ˢᶦᵐᵖˡʸ ᵃᶦⁿ'ᵗ ᵉⁿᵒᵘᵍʰ,  
> ᴾᵃᵖᵃ'ˢ ᵍᵒⁿⁿᵃ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵇᵉ ᵃ ᵇᶦᵗ ᵐᵒʳᵉ ᵗᵒᵘᵍʰ.
> 
> O̶ᴜ̶ʀ̶ ̶ʟ̶ɪ̶ᴠ̶ᴇ̶s̶ ̶ᴀ̶ʀ̶ᴇ̶ ̶ɴ̶ᴏ̶ᴛ̶ ̶ᴏ̶ᴜ̶ʀ̶ ̶ᴏ̶ᴡ̶ɴ̶;̶ ̶ғ̶ʀ̶ᴏ̶ᴍ̶ ̶ᴡ̶ᴏ̶ᴍ̶ʙ̶ ̶ᴛ̶ᴏ̶ ̶ᴛ̶ᴏ̶ᴍ̶ʙ̶,̶ ̶ᴡ̶ᴇ̶ ̶ᴀ̶ʀ̶ᴇ̶ ̶ʙ̶ᴏ̶ᴜ̶ɴ̶ᴅ̶ ̶ᴛ̶ᴏ̶ ̶ᴏ̶ᴛ̶ʜ̶ᴇ̶ʀ̶s̶,̶ ̶ᴘ̶ᴀ̶s̶ᴛ̶ ̶ᴀ̶ɴ̶ᴅ̶ ̶ᴘ̶ʀ̶ᴇ̶s̶ᴇ̶ɴ̶ᴛ̶,̶ ̶ᴀ̶ɴ̶ᴅ̶ ̶ʙ̶ʏ̶ ̶ᴇ̶ᴀ̶ᴄ̶ʜ̶ ̶ᴄ̶ʀ̶ɪ̶ᴍ̶ᴇ̶ ̶ᴀ̶ɴ̶ᴅ̶ ̶ᴇ̶ᴠ̶ᴇ̶ʀ̶ʏ̶ ̶ᴋ̶ɪ̶ɴ̶ᴅ̶ɴ̶ᴇ̶s̶s̶ ̶ᴡ̶ᴇ̶ ̶ʙ̶ɪ̶ʀ̶ᴛ̶ʜ̶ ̶ᴏ̶ᴜ̶ʀ̶ ̶ғ̶ᴜ̶ᴛ̶ᴜ̶ʀ̶ᴇ̶.̶
> 
> B̷̌͛ᴜ̷̑͝ᴛ̷̊̌ ̶̀͋ś̸̯ᴏ̶̌̆ᴍ̷̃̎ᴇ̸̥͗ʙ̶̾͊ᴏ̷̒̏ᴅ̴̛͆ʏ̵̄͛ ̷̱͋ᴄ̴̂͋ᴀ̷̽̑ᴍ̶̋̚ᴇ̸̽̚.̴̄͒

They came out of the blue and rushed her, she could’ve never prepared for this. Now that it was all in the open, there was no doubt to be had or rational untruth to shield with. To make any kind of sense of this, Toriel had to go back some: back to where this all started to go crazy. The apartment welcomed her back with its confining charms and destitute lighting. All the new things that stood in contrast to the bare room begged to do something for her. All the things Byran had ‘squandered’ that money on: they banded together to tell her a story. 

All of that varied and good looking food in the kitchen, they were anything but fresh: ‘ **_clearance’_ ** is where he bought them from. What Toriel couldn’t see before was the groups of cartons in the fridge and tins in the cabinets all marked with ‘ **Baby Formula’** and all very expensive. At any given time, that was where most of his food budget went. 

That big fancy ‘idiot box’ with its VCR and collection of tapes. She didn’t get the chance to see how most of them were not for entertainment. 

‘ **_Don’t sweat it! Changing time made easy’_ **

**_‘_ ** **New Parent Helpbook’**

**‘Getting into your baby’s mind’**

Almost everything that went into that VHS player had to do with Byran teaching himself how to take care of this child. 

The furniture that actually made the living room? For him to comfortably interact with this kid, to let them play in a soft and gentle place. The reading lamps were for all the self help books he purchased. Byran made a habit to hold the infant in one arm with a book in another as he lay down on the sofa. 

The car? Well, the pediatrician (That was the ‘Doctor specifically for human children’ for Toriel. Humans had a lot of specific jobs because they could afford to do that… monsters had to be more broad) was too far away to get there on foot. Byran had one thought about carrying this child outside in the stinging cold to get there and that was the end of the decision making process. The car was faster and had a heater. It didn’t have a car seat by default, but he made sure to find the most expensive one… Hell, he bought  _ two _ just in case the first one showed any signs of wear. 

Almost no expense was spared for himself and for whatever  _ was _ reserved for him, it probably had something to do with ensuring he could care for this child better. 

‘To care for…’ 

The time came again that Toriel would look down into a crib, Byran was standing beside her this time. Watching the baby peacefully sleeping under all her warm blankets and cuddling up to the stuffed rabbit doll that Byran had gifted to her. Toriel just stared at the child; the beginnings of long brown hair covered the head while there was just the same amount of rosiness on her cheeks. The same amount of rosiness as her mother… as-

‘Chara…?’

Everything lost its lucidity again, nothing could be definite except for the certainty Toriel that she should probably be feeling something real strong right about now. It was already unlikely, it had already crossed ‘unfeasible’ and was too far beyond ‘absurd’ to even be considerable as a freak incident. At this point… this was a conspiracy, everything Toriel had witnessed up to this point: it was part of something brooding and burrowing below the surface. There was no way these repeated connections were natural and now Toriel  _ knew  _ that there would be more of them to come. She just had to  _ wait. _

Still, there was something to be said, looking at this child. This truly was a- it was a-  _ It was an  _ **_experience_ ** to do it the most minimal amount of service. Inherently, Toriel was going to have to push this into any remaining vacant ‘dark place’ inside of her. She couldn’t let it stop her from proceeding, not when she was so close. All she was allowed to deduct was that Byran was Chara’s uncle… and make  _ one  _ prediction. That Byran had everything to do with the reason Chara ever fell down in the first place. Toriel was still able to feel  _ ‘ _ **_ill_ ** _ ’  _ for the very notion that he caused some kind of unforeseen harm… but what  _ happened?  _

Toriel returned herself to acceptable ‘normalcy’ and turned her attention back to Byran who- wasn’t there anymore,  _ where did he go?  _ What was he up to now? Funny how one startling and game changing discovery later and Toriel was fearing for what Byran was gonna do to the world instead of the other way  _ around.  _ He left his kid alone in the apartment again and this time, Toriel caught up to him… standing right outside of the building. Byran didn’t go any further than the door to the stairwell. He took a chilling breath of the cold air and brought out a pack and a lighter, Byran had started smoking cigarettes. He never did it inside or anywhere nearby though, it was bad for the baby. 

* * *

“ _ Byran!  _ Whatta-ya  **_doin??”_ **

Here came Charles, out of the blue and upset about something.

“Oh hey Charles. I’m just takin a  _ break  _ on the house _ ,  _ how’re you doin?”

Toriel made the mistake of losing focus on everything besides Byran. Before she realized it, everyone was now outside at the edge of noon in front of Byran’s purchased estate. He was sitting on an old stone bench that sat by the walkway to the front door. Charles had parked up by Byran’s Pontiac and strolled up all casually until he saw the thing in Byran’s lips. 

Charles started shaking his head and his hands all around and disapprovingly.

“ _ No _ no no no no no no- you’re goin and ruinin a good pair a  _ lungs.  _ Gimme that.”

“ _ Really?  _ C’mon now, I’m not-”

“ _ Ahp! Ooopen…”  _

“But I’m not doing it  _ insiide.  _ **_Fiine…”_ **

With a newly found ‘grump’ on his now stubble present face. He opened his mouth and let his tongue seep out while the half spent carcinogen fell into Charles’s expecting hand.

“ _ Bleah…”  _

  
  


Charles smiled at him.

“Thank  _ youuuuu.  _ I’m tellin ya- this’z a bad bad habit to start. You dun wanna get into this y’know? I mean you just up and stick it-”

He took the still lit cigarette and brought it to  _ his _ mouth for a long drag.

“You.  _ ASS!”  _

Byran’s little reaction to that prank earned a devious little giggle from his friend. Another cigarette would be taken from its pack and lit up in the meantime. Charles took notice of the fresh one and squinted an eye at Byran.

“Oh shit, are those the Pall Malls from the shipment we found by the ration crates?”

“Mhmn.”

The thing finally caught from the spark of the lighter. Byran held up the red pack for Charles to see before putting everything back into his pockets. 

“Aren’t those like  _ actually  _ bad for you or something? I dunno, I think I read somewhere they stopped makin those for some reason.” 

Byran shrugged and rolled his eyes.

“All I know is we got a shit- _ ton  _ of em and I don’t feel like actually paying for something we got for free  _ soo...”  _

He took his first puff from the new one and exhaled its toxic breath slowly, ending it with a little cough.

“ **_BiH!-_ ** _ sides _ . I don’t like the other brands, they taste weird.”

  
  


Charles couldn’t argue with that, he sat down on the little brick stairs in front of the house. 

“Howzit goin- _ der _ then?”

“I’m almost finished with the  _ house…  _ won’t be long till we don’t gotta step foot in that crappy apartment again.”

“Well  _ heyyy,  _ that’s great! Congratulations, man!”

For such a momentous occasion, it had seemed that Charles was the only one celebrating it. Not so much the guy who put his back into it for upwards of a  _ year _ . Byran just shot him a weak smile and shrugged again. Of course it sobered and dampened Charles up.

“What’s the matter? Isn’t this a  _ good _ thing?”

“Yeah, of course it is, I can’t wait to finally move in for real. It’s just-”

A good sigh seeped out from him, the cigarette was moved to his fingers.

“-It’s my aunt again.”

Now  _ Charles _ sighed, only he sounded more irritated than anything as he drew it out. 

“Awhhhhh for chri- what’s her problem  _ this _ time?” 

“You  _ know _ what it is.”

“ _ Uuggh,  _ of course, same old shit again. Givin you a hard time just for the sake of it.”

Byran frowned more and flicked some of the ashes from his cigarette. 

“She’s just worried about me and I  _ get _ it. I just-”

Charles loudly interrupted and finished his sentence for him in a mocking manner.

“You just  _ don’t know why she can’t trust you and take your word for it because she thinks you’re a no good crook like your dad.  _ Yeah, I  _ know,  _ you tell me this every time I  _ see _ you.”

A low grunt was heard from Byran. 

“ _ Hmmph.  _ This time though, she was askin me why I was so ‘obsessed’ with tryin to fix this place. Why I was ‘trying’ to repeat the past with my niece.”

“Mmn, how is she doin, anyway? I don’t meant’a cut you off there. You have her with you though? Or did you leave her back at the apartment again.”

He almost took offense to the question.

“What-  _ No!  _ Of course not- I mean I hired a  _ sitter _ for her. I don’t leave her  _ alone  _ anymore- I don’t  _ do _ that-”

Nervous glances to and fro.

“-I didn’t have a choice the first times, wasn’t like I  _ wanted  _ to.”

“Alright, big guy. Take it easy there, I was just askin a question.”

Byran took a good long drag of his cigarette and sighed it back out. 

“I know. I’m sorry, she’s just been stressin me out, Aunt. She keeps  _ sayin  _ I’m doin this for  _ myself.  _ That-that I-I’m tryin to prove a point to someone or spite my parents or something. I mean, can you  _ believe  _ that?”

There was no audible response which prompted Byran to reiterate his evidently non-rhetorical question.

“ _ Can _ you?”

“Oh.  _ Well  _ I mean-”

It turned out to be a rhetorical question all along, Byran went into some direction with his tangent. 

“Is it  _ so  _ wrong that I want to give this kid an actual childhood, like  _ normal  _ people have? That I want to give her an actual  _ home _ to live in, one she’s not afraid to be in? Or have an actual backyard and a living room to  _ play  _ in? That she’ll never have to go to bed thinking about if her parents will remember to  _ feed  _ her? Is  _ that _ so wrong, Charles?”

Charles was only answering Byran to confirm him like he wanted. His tone reflected how redundant this felt.

“ _ Noo…?”  _

“I mean- she thinks (Again, referring to Loisa) I’m bein selfish but what runs through my head every time I come here: is givin this kid a happy healthy upbringin, puttin her right through the biggest and fanciest schools and it don’t matter how much they cost, gettin her everything she needs to go out and get one of those jobs where all you do is watch over everyone work and paid more than all of em combined… I am  _ not _ passing my torch down to her just like my sir did, she ain’t gonna have to so much  _ look _ at a gun for her entire career.”

There was a slightly surprised twitch, Charles sat up and frowned a bit.

“Wha really? You ain’t gonna continue the business when you retire, why?” 

A moment of silence was had between them. Byran finished his cigarette and flicked it away, gaining full use of his arms to move and progress his ideas. 

“ **No** , Charles. I’m not. I wanna give her a normal life and this? We both know this ain’t normal… You say I’m like my father, but this is where I know I’m different. He  _ wanted _ me to be his successor, he felt like he had to do it. Most kids can tie their shoes at age five, I was wearing velcro and disassembling assault rifles.” 

“Yeah? And you’re doin pretty damn  _ good _ for yourself right about now, arent’cha?”

“Of  _ course _ I am- I have more money than I know what to  _ do _ with. By the time I put this down, it’ll never be able to be a problem ever. She’ll have an endless account to draw from, god forbid they decide they wanna screw her over to… It’s not my point though.  _ I  _ do not want to put her entire life at risk so that she has to go and  _ do  _ these things.”

“Oh  _ come  _ onnn, are you  _ serious?” _

“I  _ am!  _ Charles, you  _ know _ what we’re doing is not right. OK? We did it because we  _ had _ to, and even then we  _ shouldn’t  _ have. We can’t do this forever, yanno. We get to a point that we’re making others do this because we  _ want _ them to? And we’re askin for the trouble… And believe me, I’m starting to worry that I’m gonna see those goddamn lights outside my window and that my niece is going to see  _ me _ getting blasted all over the  _ walls!  _ I ain’t gonna  _ do _ that to her, I ain’t gonna make her go through what  _ I  _ did. I want her to grow up and be NOTHING like me.”

At this point, Byran had got up from his spot and paced around, Charles did too from the escalation… He however was focused on calming this down. Charles gestured his hands down down down.

“Whoa  _ whoa  _ there- slow  _ doown!  _ That is  _ never  _ going to happen! The gov’ment is  _ never  _ gonna get so much as a clue on us. You gotta take it  _ easy _ there, skipper.” 

“They got my father, and he was the best in this dirty business… I’m nowhere near as good as him and I’m terrified half of the time.”

“Your  _ father…  _ What happened with your father had  _ nothin  _ to do with what he did, I  _ toldja  _ that. That little ‘surprise’ you got here was foul play and I’ll keep tellin ya that. His enterprise coulda gone on a  _ hundred _ years or two and they wouldn’t have found out. What did him in and threw you in the can was a  **_rat._ ** Somebody decided they wanted to ruin it for everyone just to see what happened and they flopped to the pigs… And that’s why you’re untouchable  _ now,  _ because there ain’t  _ nobody  _ else on our know and level except  _ you _ and  _ me…  _ you get that?” 

It earned a half enthusiastic nod, Byran believed him fully but he was still subject to his doubts. That wasn’t the problem though with Charles.

“As for your little ‘conscience’ you got growin on ya like a tumor: We ain’t the ones actually pullin the trigger and  _ shootin  _ people.  _ We _ ain’t the guys up an decidin to shoot up a place or our adulterous bitch of a wife and  _ frankly?  _ We ain’t really the ones decidin if our clients can or  _ can’t  _ get their hands on firearms, y’know that? All we’re doin is makin life easier for em for the price of makin it easier for  _ ourselves. _ Y’know what would happen if  _ we  _ decided to stop selling em guns? They’d just go and find someone else to buy from, simple as that… We ain’t responsible for  _ nothing.  _ We ain’t doin  _ anything  _ wrong and we ain’t hurtin  _ nobody.”  _

“You’re... -”

There was more emphasis to his nod and even a change to his face and mood. 

“You’re right, Charles. I just- I wanna make sure she  _ gets  _ a life. I only want what’s best for her.”

An arm grasped his shoulder, a cocked grin at him followed.

“That’s just what bein a dad is like, Byran. You’re gonna find that ‘best’ idn’t enough for her.”

Byran  _ ‘snrked’ _ .

“I ain’t her dad, just her  _ uncle _ . But you  _ are  _ right, my best ain’t good enough…”

* * *

What was Toriel supposed to believe about that? That Byran really  _ wasn’t _ good enough for Chara? They showed up into her care for a reason and Byran started calling himself ‘Brainz’ and allegedly shooting people in the face for  _ another _ reason… perhaps the same one? 

No, at this point there was no reason to doubt him anymore: that’s what started this in the first place. What he had done so far could’ve been judged by any morally positive person, but what he had done in the soul draining gaze of desperation: Byran went above and beyond. To even be fully submerged in this lifestyle but to still have the ability to know it was wrong and that he wanted none of it to reach his niece. He  _ was _ trying his best.

His best entitled so much more than this; far before he made the fateful decision under all those bills. While Byran swore never to leave his child alone again, it did not nullify the hard fact that he still did. Not out of choice of course, but it still happened and he still wouldn’t forgive himself for it. The latest in similar guilt trips came to him as he stood in a room with pink walls.

  
  


This room, it used to be Rosemary’s. A lot of the furniture suited for a younger girl had withstood the test of time and wear. Byran still put more effort into restoring this room than most of the others. Any furniture or moldings he couldn’t shine to absolute perfection were replaced with brand new ones that fit his standard. His attention though wasn’t on any of the features he brought here, but the sleeping form inside of the toddler bed. His niece was all curled up inside, grown quite a bit but still clutching the same rabbit doll from before while a whole family of bigger and more expensive plushie rabbits lay untouched at the foot of her bed. 

Byran smirked at all the rabbits, they never had a chance with this kid; she had her early soulmate given to her before Byran could afford to buy her a stuffed animal… let alone the car needed to make the trip to this place to find  _ his _ stuffed rabbit. (He never did by the way, Tami was invariably lost). Not wanting the kid to be utterly alone; he grabbed himself a couple of crew socks, sacrificed a throw pillow for the stuffing, reclaimed one of his old buttoned shirts, and picked up his second sewing needle, and got to work. The socks were spares from his drawer and the sewing supplies as well as the lessons to go with them came from his Aunt who was touched by the intention. 

He spent the later parts of his entire weekend working on the sock rabbit. The thing had little button eyes (one vaguely blue and one vaguely green) and a navy blue ‘dress’ (Mostly made from a shirt sleeve). It didn’t turn out perfect or anywhere near: the limbs were assymetrical, the head was a little big for the body, the ears were just  _ huge _ and way more plump than a rabbit’s ears should have been, on top of all of this, Byran had done the seams over many times and it definitely showed… it didn’t stop his niece from falling in love with it the moment Byran showed it to her. Any attempts to replace it with a ‘better’ stuffed animal failed. Any temporary replacements while uncle Byran searched for a lost rabbit would result in tears when it was left behind by accident on their first visit to Byran’s newly purchased property. 

There was just no replacing “Papa Bun”. 

“Served me right for try’n.” 

He whispered before patting his niece on her shoulder and pulling up her blankets. The bedroom lights went out and the little night light came on. Now came the tricky part of tiptoeing out without disturbing her. Byran had gotten pretty good at it over the years, he could get to the door without making so much as a- 

**_*klunk*_ **

“What-was-that.” 

He didn’t ironically mess up. It sounded like it came from downstairs, too vague to discern from how it was muffled through the closed door. Byran’s niece didn’t stir from the sound, but he  _ felt  _ the vibration from it. With the smile and fondness gone from him, he opened that bedroom door so slightly and so quietly into the dark hallway… listening, waiting. It  _ could _ have been nothing, it could have been an animal or the icemaker in the fridge,  **_it wasn’t._ **

**_*Ka-lunk!*_ **

_ That _ was a clumsy footstep on the linoleum floor, somebody was inside of the house. Byran closed the door so fast that it almost made an audible sound. He froze up for a moment and relayed the storm that came over his mind, outside he was just whispering to himself in panic. 

“ _ Oh my god… Oh my fucking god it’s happening.” _

Everything frantic and terrified continued until… he turned around to his niece. Then he slowed down real quick, something turned off all the terror and got all quiet and methodical. Like a machine starting up inside of him. 

“OK. This is not the cops or Charles dropping by, too quiet. They’re in the kitchen or living room right now, probably casing for appliances to steal…”

He opened the door again quietly, just enough for him to slip into the carpeted hallway and to push it shut. Byran made sure to push the little lock before exiting, effectively locking himself out of the bedroom. He would deal with that problem later, right now? He scampered right across the corridor and into the open room which was…  _ His  _ bedroom now. It had a bed, a tidy(ish) desk, and the works. Byran was only interested in going under his bed and sliding out a small black and silver case. There was a big lock on the front of it but the key came to it attached to a bracelet revealed under Byran’s sleeve. 

**COLT COMMANDER 45**

Byran armed himself with the weapon, checking its magazine and grabbing the three other ones from the case. 

As if this wasn’t scary enough, this had to have been the ‘ _ IT’  _ that Toriel was waiting for. Byran was about to kill someone, this had to be it or the beginning of such. She could have been experiencing more terror and dread than Byran was as he sidled down the stairs. The subtle racket continued, he hadn’t been detected yet and was just about to round the corner from the foyer. The gun proceeded first and would get the first glimpse at the dark moving shape in the kitchen. 

They were on their knees emptying out Byran’s pots and pans cabinet. 

“Hold it  _ right there!”  _   
The fear and timidness was absent from his voice, he boomed through the house with a level of command and assertion, just like his father. 

The assailant jumped up, startled. They hit their head on the underside of the counter and make a second gasp from the sudden pain. 

**_Ka-CHINK!_ **

The gun easily spoke for him when he pulled the metal slide back, but Byran went for redundancy’s sake. 

“Before you make your next move: **_45 ACP exploding hollow point rounds._** There’ll be a grape sized hole in your back but it’ll look like a _chestburster_ came outta your heart!”

They went completely motionless aside for their hands which had impulsively gone to their head from the impact were now both as high as they could go up in the air. They understood Byran perfectly. 

“Now, get on up out of there- but  _ stay on your knees!  _ You do it  _ slowly  _ now, any sudden movements and yer fuck’n  **dead.** Now  **go.** ”

It was really dark in here, Byran couldn’t make out much of the shape still. He wanted to reach behind him for the light switch, but that would mean momentarily taking his attention off of the would-be burglar or his hand from his gun. The intruder did what he asked though, he could hear their breathing and how it sounded more frantic and more terrified than his. Even on their knees though, they must have been  _ small. _ He could see their twiggy little arms with these small hands up in the air.

No, do not detract from focus. 

“Alright,  _ good _ . That’s enough. Now you’re gonna tell me: Do you have any  _ friends  _ with you? If you do, you better tell em to give up  _ now  _ or you’re gonna hear them die if I find them tryin to get the one up on me.  **_Are you with anybody?_ ** **Answer me** **_now!”_ **

“N-nn-nn _ no.  _ I’m-mmm  _ n-not-  _ I’m not-please. D-don’t kill me.”

Never mind the fact they sounded too terrified to be lying… they sounded too young to be a burglar! Byran was thrown off enough and almost ‘diffused’ from hearing their voice that he actually took the risk and flipped the light switch on. 

What he saw, it looked like a child sized doll had come to life and crawled through a sewage outlet. This was a kid who couldn’t have been over eight years old wearing this ratty blue dress with torn up trim and lacing underneath a worn brown jacket they could've picked out of the garbage. Was it a girl? They  _ could’ve _ been, their hair looked like it had been longer and done up into something fancy before someone just cut it with a piece of glass or something really jagged and uneven. Underneath all the dirt and grime on her face, Byran saw two little glistening eyes with irises as red as rubies. 

His blatant astonishment with what he was seeing seeped from his lips.

“What the. Fuck…?” 

Needless to say, his gun was lowered some. 

The kid spoke again, trembling terribly.

“MM-ister I wasn’ _ T  _ tt-trying to rob y-you. I was j-jist looking for a p-place to  _ hide..”  _

Byran couldn’t squint any more than he already was.

“What…? From  _ whom?”  _

No sooner did he ask did he catch a pair of headlights gleaming through his front windows and briefly lighting up the dark hallway. 

“Oh god they’re here!”

  
  


“... What’s your name?”

It was the most spontaneous thing ever, with his focus on the lights: Byran asked the mess of a human girl in his peripheral vision for her name. He still held his squint, and had this beyond dubious look on his face. 

“W-what?”

He repeated himself with more haste, albeit impatience. 

“Your name- your _ name, _ what is it? Just tell me, quick.” 

There was more confusion sowed but the child would comply even after hesitating and stammering.

“Ii-i-it’s Chara. My name is  _ Chara…  _ why?” 

Byran nodded once to affirm something, then he tilted his head toward the front door.

“Ok, come with me.”

“ _ N-no!  _ You’re gonna turn me in!  _ PLEASE  _ d-don’t! I can’t-”

He bent over and shook his (still armed) hands frantically in front of the kid’s face. Byran ‘yelled’ at them in a hushed voice..

“No-no-no!  _ Shush!  _ I’m not gonna  _ do  _ that! Just play along,  _ c’mon.”  _

Whether it was because he earned Chara’s trust or the fact he still technically held her under a gun, she followed him. Byran concealed the commander into his pants and shirt, he walked up to the foyer and flicked on all the lights: his front lawn was illuminated too. He unlocked and threw open the main door, leaving only an ornate glass door between the running vehicle with the two figures who stepped out and he. 

He turned around to Chara, peering and hiding in the one hallway: giving them a thumbs up and mouthing at them once again to “Work with me”.

…

“ _ Chara!  _ I didn’t know you were coming over for a  _ visit!” _

Proclaimed as loudly and frankly  _ obnoxiously  _ as he could, he wanted to be sure he could be heard through the glass, pretending to be unaware of the presence outside. Chara just looked at him like he had five heads and said nothing. Byran gestured with his hand for them to respond to him, but it looked like he had to help them out.

“You shoulda  _ said _ something! I woulda left the lights on for ya! I mean, I was just gettin ready for  _ bed.” _   
  


Again… they were too petrified and confounded to say anything. Byran made the move to look out his front door at the two men who were just getting to his walkway. He put on the most deceptive smile and swung the glass door open. 

“Oh! Are these friends of yours?”

He made sure to pat and feel for the gun under his waistline: he was about ready to shoot those men. 

“Heya, how’re you guys doing tonight? Did you give Chara a ride here? That’s awful  _ nice of you…”  _

One of the guys was wearing a black trench-coat, the other a gray parka: both of them were wearing gloves. The black trench-coat's eyes widened and this deep voice answered Byran.

“You actually  _ know _ this kid?” 

He guffawed fraudulently.

“ _ ‘Do I know this kid?’  _ Chara’s like  **_family_ ** to me! You kiddin me? I couldn’t imagine life without em! I care about em  _ so  _ much, more than myself if you believe that.” 

There was a shared 'troubled' feeling between both of the creeps, they quickly looked to each other for advice on what to do. The brown coat made his gambit, making the move to play Byran’s game. 

“Your uhh- kid there is in a  _ lot  _ of trouble- we need to uhh- head on back to their  _ real home  _ together to sort it out with their  _ real  _ parents.” 

“Ohh it’s  _ fine-” _

In the most untroubled sounding tone ever, even with a discarding little swipe of his hand 

“- Let _me_ handle it. Chara’s a little troublemaker but I’m always there to help her out when she _needs_ it. So uh- anytime anyone has any kind of **_beef_** with her. They erm-”

His hands were placed on his hips, and he raised his shoulders just enough to lift his shirt and for both of the men to see that gun tucked just above his groin. For the end of his sentence, Byran made sure… he made  **dead sure** that he was looking both of them in the eyes.

“- **_they answer to *meee*.”_ **

“ _ Ohhh shit..”  _

One of them backed away. 

Byran adjusted his pants and loudly cracked his neck.

“ _ So…  _ what is it that little Chara has gotten herself into? I wanna know,  **_I really_ ** **_do_ ** **_…”_ **

“Uhhh- it’s actually  _ nothing-  _ actually, it’s fine,  _ right?” _

“Yeah actually, don’t worry about it.”

They weren’t just pardoning Chara, they were saving their own lives. Byran made sure to never drop that smile, that antagonizing and menacing grin. He sought to finish his game with a ‘victory lap’ by patronizing and belittling them.

“ _ Ohhh _ ! That’s  _ good!  _ I really appreciate that- Me and the entire  **_Rhattz Enterprise-_ ** you heard of em, yeah? Yeah, we all appreciate little Chara. Thanks guys.”

There were more nervous glances between the two guys. Byran looked over his shoulder to see if Chara was still standing there. They were… but it looked like they were about to faint from the look on their face. He turned his attention back to the door and the fact he still had  _ company.  _

“Well I guess you two better get  _ going,  _ it’s pretty late after all.”

They agreed, both looking a little pale in the moonlight. Right before he would really let them go through, Byran had one more thing to ask.

“I trust this’ll take care of it for  _ good? _ I mean that uh- you guys will have no reason to ever  _ show up here again…  _ and deal with  _ me  _ instead of this little kid.” 

The black coat nodded profusely.

“Uh-yeah yeah! It’s-”

He was cut off by his ‘friend’ grabbing his arm and muttering something angry into his ear. Black coat wasn’t up to speed with keeping his voice low enough Byran wouldn’t hear as he shoved his friend away.

“No, it’s not fucking  _ worth  _ it- she’s as good as dead now and they’re gonna have to deal with it. I wanna get out of here.”

Brown coat took one final look at Byran, who was now politely crossing his hands by his waist: the gun clutched in one of them. He just smiled wider at him. 

They both turned and left, piling into their windowless van and backing down the driveway with their tail between their legs. Byran made sure to wave at them, with his one hand turning into a middle finger at the last second before he shut the door. 

“You people fucking  _ disgust  _ me…” 

He killed all but the kitchen light, walking to Chara who was propped up against the wall panting. 

Byran returned to his inside voice, crouching down and starting gently.

“Hey, they’re gone now. Are you  _ okay?  _ I’m really sorry about that, I really didn’t know. What’s going on with you though?” 

She looked at him after a good long while, like it took her until now to realize he existed. When she did, Byran only furthered his worried look.

“Are you  _ alright,  _ Chara?” 

Chara started coughing, it turned into wheezing sobs as she slid to the floor and buried her head into her filthy arms. 

“Ohhh.. Ok. Ok, lemme get you some water… Just take it easy, you’re safe now.” 

She didn’t budge much when he came back with a tall glass and a towel but when he made it clear he had come with the water.

“Why did you  _ do  _ that for me?...” 

He wouldn’t get to answer her though (Not like he would be able to) because the sound of a door opening upstairs took both of their attention. A  _ real young  _ voice would call through the house.

“Uncle Brainz?” 

Byran called back.

“It’s alright! I’m down here, Adre. I’m sorry about the noise…” 

  
  



	13. 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> C̶o̶m̴e̵ ̶m̵y̸ ̴c̴h̸i̸l̵d̷  
> ̶S̴t̸a̴y̵ ̷w̶i̵t̴h̵ ̸m̵e̸  
> ̴I̶'̵l̶l̶ ̷p̷r̸o̸t̴e̶c̶t̸ ̸y̵o̴u̸ ̴a̸n̴d̶ ̵y̵o̴u̸r̵ ̵d̷r̶e̴a̵m̷s̸  
> ̵  
> ̵R̵e̵s̵t̵ ̶m̸y̴ ̶c̸h̴i̷l̶d̶  
> ̷'̸N̶e̸a̷t̵h̵ ̷t̴h̸e̴ ̷t̶r̴e̵e̴  
> ̴L̵i̷k̸e̵ ̶i̷t̵'̴s̴ ̸b̶r̴a̴n̸c̶h̷e̵s̷,̶ ̷r̴e̵a̶c̵h̷ ̷f̶o̷r̷ ̷m̵e̵  
> ̵  
> ̷S̶o̴ ̴l̸e̶t̸ ̸m̷e̷ ̷k̸e̸e̵p̵ ̷y̶o̶u̵ ̶s̷a̷f̵e̵ ̴a̴n̶d̸ ̵w̸a̴r̷m̸ ̷h̴e̵r̶e̸ ̴i̶n̵ ̶m̵y̸ ̷a̴r̸m̸s̴  
> ̷T̶h̴i̷n̸k̸ ̵o̵f̷ ̶t̴h̷e̷ ̵l̶i̸f̴e̸ ̸t̴h̶a̴t̸ ̷w̷e̷ ̶c̸o̷u̸l̵d̶ ̸l̴i̴v̵e̵,̶ ̶t̸h̶e̴ ̸j̴o̷y̴ ̷t̷h̸a̵t̴ ̶i̵t̴ ̷c̴o̷u̴l̴d̸ ̵g̸i̸v̴e̴  
> ̸E̸v̶e̵n̷ ̷i̴f̷ ̵w̴e̵'̷r̴e̴ ̶w̸o̷r̶l̵d̸s̸ ̶a̸p̴a̸r̵t̶,̴ ̴s̵t̷a̴y̷ ̶i̵n̸ ̷m̸y̷ ̸h̵e̸a̴r̴t̵  
> ̸S̶o̸m̵e̶d̶a̷y̶ ̸w̴h̸e̴n̸ ̸y̸o̷u̶'̸v̶e̷ ̷a̵ ̵c̷h̷o̵i̸c̴e̵ ̵t̷o̷ ̸m̶a̷k̵e̶,̴ ̸I̶ ̷h̸o̷p̶e̷ ̵y̸o̶u̴'̴l̷l̷ ̵t̵h̸i̸n̶k̵ ̷o̶f̶ ̸m̶e̸  
> ̴  
> ̵T̶h̵i̵n̶k̶ ̶o̷f̸ ̵m̶e̵  
> ̸T̶h̶i̶n̷k̷ ̸o̶f̷ ̶m̶e̸
> 
> Not a day goes by that I don't think about them, it was all my fault...   
> This is where they made their only mistake....

Sooner or later you realize that it can always get worse, but the wisest of all knew that there was no such thing as a limit to anything. If the notion that your ‘one and only special adopted human child who fell from the sky’ was related to two of the people who came down later was too incredulous; how about the fact that he actually adopted them  _ first?  _ When it came to blood, Byran had absolutely no relation to Chara. They had dropped into his and his niece’s life and he let them stay with him.  _ Of course _ Toriel wanted to know more about this but so did Charles. Byran spent almost an hour filling him in over the phone while Chara sat in the kitchen. 

“Did you find out if those guys were  _ working _ with someone?”

Charles inquired.

“No, all I know is that whatever they were doing with this kid… was  _ bad.  _ **_Real_ ** bad. I don’t even wanna think about it and neither do they (Chara).” 

He  _ did  _ ask them but knowing he couldn’t be blunt, Byran tried to be gentle by asking if those two creeps were full of shit about taking Chara back to their parents. He even offered to call them, assuming they must be worried sick about their kid.

“ **No.** They were telling the truth.”

That was all Chara had or wanted to say about that and Byran didn’t know what to take from it. He just knew the condition they were in when he saw them and the amount of terror that had to run through them for Chara to break down like that when it was over. He’d been that sobbing mess on the floor before… it wasn’t fun. Normally, you wouldn’t take a child’s exaggerations at face value: that they begged you not to take them back to their parents for some unknown reason/excuse.  **He believed them though.**

“Why do you keep referrin to her like that?  _ ‘They’, _ I thought you said it was a girl.”

Byran quickly checked to make sure Chara hadn’t come up behind him into earshot. He hushed himself some.

“Ok look, she’s obviously a girl but. She uh.  _ Asked  _ me if I could not call her one. I  _ did  _ ask why but she just asked me over and over to  _ please _ not… I’m startin to think I found the runner up to ‘worst upbringing ever’. God knows what this could mean.”

“That’s.  _ Idiotic.” _

Byran got a trifle irritated.

“Well yea- I _know_ it’s weird, ok? But it upsets them for a reason, that’s all I need to know. End of it.”

“Alright alright, whatever… Whatta you reckon you’re gonna  _ do  _ with’er? Those guys or their friends comin back is one thing, but how’re you gonna get this kid offa you? You already did more than you should, but you know these begging types: give em an inch and they take a mile…  _ OR- _ are you gonna give em free room and board with that?”

His friend was being especially picky and abrasive with him today. Toriel already didn’t care for Charles or just about anybody else in Byran’s life except his aunt… and his niece… and  _ Chara.  _

Byran grunted with his exhale.

“Hey-I’m thinkin- I’m  _ thinkin!” _

Charles continued. 

“See, this is why you should just  _ leave  _ things alone. Now you’re all stuck in somethin you really oughta not be part of and you got dead weight clinging to your ankle-”

“ _ Hey....” _

Byran wasn’t allowed to interject and interrupt.

“- _ Here’s  _ what I propose you do- get this kid a bus ticket: send em  _ far  _ far off, tell em its to get outta dodge. You’ll probably have to give em some cash, but you’re already spending on them so… little more to keep em from leeching onto ya. Back to normal,  **_guaranteed._ ** If those guys give ya problems later, point to the buses and tell em ‘good luck’.” 

“What?  _ No, _ Charles I’m not gonna-”

A brief and rousing sigh that left Byran pinching his nose bridge before speaking again with his expasherpated undertone.

“Look, I gotta go: I’ll see you tomorrow at the transaction house.” 

“Make sure you tie this up quick, Byran. You’ve already got one kid dragging you down, you don’t need two… Does your Aunt even know about this yet?”

“No.”

“Hm, I suggest you take of this so you don’t  _ have _ to tell her, if you catch my drift.”

“Yeah, I’ll think about it. Thanks, Charles.”

The phone call ended and Byran treated himself to another, more drawn out sigh before strolling back to the kitchen/dining area. 

“Sorry about that, that was my boss from work.”

“Mmf, it’s fine. Thank you for feeding me actual real food. I can pay you back later I-”

“Ohh,  _ stop  _ that… I don’t wanna hear another word about that. Seriously, you’re good and-  _ wow _ …”

So here was Chara, they looked a  _ lot _ more familiar now with the lack of filth covering their face and wearing a plain sweater and comfortable looking pants: fresh from the store. They were so  _ small,  _ propped up with a cushion on one of the dining room chairs, halfway through a burger while sitting at the table amidst bountiful bags of greasy fast food. Byran was intimidated by all the wrappers.

“Are you on your  _ third  _ one? Christ on a canoe, you’re  _ starving!  _ When was the last time you ate something?”

Chara would wait until they finished what they had in their mouth before answering a question Byran didn’t even vocalize.

“They made sure I couldn’t gain any weight at all so I could fit into those tiny dresses.” 

They returned to their current burger with a lot of emphasis and enthusiasm. Not minding the mess of ketchup and mayonnaise on their face, even  _ enjoying  _ it.

“This is so good-  _ Mmf!”  _

Byran would see no other course of action but to nod and search for his food in one of the paper bags. Before he would sit down and  _ join _ them, he would look over the chest high ledge dividing the kitchen from the family room: to the little face peeking at Chara. 

“C’mere, Adre. Why don’cha come and join us for breakfast.” 

The face disappeared from the ledge and shortly after: a toddler with light brown pigtails and pink hair bands would waddle over to him. Chara stopped their ravenous display to watch Byran lift the little girl up and fasten her to her boosted chair at the table. She was adorable but more than that… downright beautiful. She had gotten all the best traits from her mother… it was the least Rosemary could’ve given her. A decorative ‘kids meal’ box would be placed on her part of the table. As Byran prepared a cloth napkin for her lap, he noticed Chara staring and turned to his niece.

“Adre, why don’t you introduce yourself to our guest.” 

She made eye contact at best for a breif second before panicking and looking away shyly. 

“It’s alright bud.  _ Chara _ here is a g- _ kid  _ just like you.” 

That seemed to work, she still couldn’t find the courage to look them in the eyes, but she spoke in the youngest  _ cutest  _ sounding voice ever. 

“My name is. Adree- _ myaa  _ (Adreemia)  _ Rantiss.  _ It is nice to. Meet you.”

It sounded like she read that off of a card with smudged ink, she wasn’t too good with speaking yet on top of the fact this was the most nerve wracking thing for her to do. It did make Chara smile a bit though.

“Hi… I’m just Chara, it is nice to meet you too.”

She squeaked and turned to Byran for help. He just smiled and chuckled modestly, patting her on the head and heading to his own seat. 

“You’re real pretty though. Do you do your pigtails  _ yourself  _ or does your dad do them for you?”

Both Byran and Adre seemed to straighten up in their seats. He started the correction, trying to play it cool.

“Oh,  _ n- _ no I’m just-”

But Adre spoke too and made him stop, sounding droopy and not very happy to admit that,

“Noo. Uncle Brainz is not my  _ dad… _ He’s just my  _ uncle  _ and I’m just his  _ neez _ **_uh_ ** _ (Niece). _ ”

The awkward silence wouldn’t last too long, Chara would ask a question that Byran appreciated for its digressive aptitude. 

“ ‘Uncle  _ Brainz?’  _ I thought your name was Byran _ .” _

Now he was the one sounding flustered and unsure.

“Oh,  _ aheh.  _ No no no, my name  _ is  _ Byran, it is- it is. That’s just ah- funny story but um-”

The brief throat clear, basically his ‘reboot’ button for conversation.

“-  _ yeah,  _ I’m her Uncle and ah. She’s my niece and well… that’s.  _ It.  _ Really.”

They looked confused, that was on him. Byran stumbled and stammered a bit trying to find the right words to say. His arms moved all over.

“What I  _ mean _ is there is uhm. There’s not much to this family except  _ Me,  _ Adre here and our Aunt/ Grand Aunt who lives down in Pennsylvania who comes to visit. We’re. All that’s  _ left.” _

“ **_Oh…”_ **

Suddenly weighed by the realization of that. 

Adre felt the need to add to what he said, almost indignant. 

“ _ And  _ **Mom** ,  _ right  _ Uncle Brainz? Don’t forget about Mom.”

Now  _ he  _ wasn’t too happy to answer.

“ _ Yes _ Adre, your Mom too.”

He had to tell Chara the whole story about Rosemary now. Byran was already not fond of it, but telling them in front of his niece just made it more uncomfortable. Of course, he sounded a whole lot more  _ hopeful _ in this one. More hopeful than how his thoughts told it to him a thousand times over.

  
  


* * *

_ S̷̳̍h̶͉͒è̸̮ ̵͙̐A̶̩͋B̸͚͛Ă̶̜N̴̜̋D̸̯̎O̴̱̓Ń̴̜E̸̞͌D̶̞̆ ̸̬̀Ṃ̶̄E̷͍͝ _

She left me for  _ DEAD _ when we were kids, she  _ fucked  _ off when I was rotting alone in solitary  _ confinement.  _ I  _ finally  _ get out and get  _ SOME  _ control over my life, I’m finally doing somewhat OK. What does she  _ do,  _ she  _ INSERTS  _ herself back into my life and throws her  _ kid  _ on me like a sheet over my head and then  **_fucks off again!_ ** Now I’m back to flailing and drowning and panicking and being afraid and. I̶̖̮̩͖̦͋̈̃͊̒̉͐̄̐̐̍̄͘̕ͅṱ̵̨̧̱̯̭̻͔͆͋̂͌̆͊̈͐̊͆̈́̈́̐͐̓̓͜͠͝͝͠'̴̼̞̣̱̰̫̠͑s̸̜̘̫̬̙̭̗̯͌̂͐̂͊̀͊͑͆̿̇̒̕̕͘ ̴̢̥̰̯̖͓̲͖̤̪̝̈́̀̋͒̿̎̏̈́̅͊̇̈̂͗n̸̗̼͈̲̂̾̾͐͐̄̀͐̉̈́̌̉̇̆̂̈̕̕͝ô̵̲̦̆̅̃̐̃͛̃̏̅̐̅̆̂̌͠t̷̡̨̧͓̪̪̝̜̦̩͖͓̟̜̣̣̝͓̲̦̬͑̌́̈́̇̌͂̈́̏͗͆̇  **_̸̛͙̻͖͙̅̌̏̿͋͛̽̔͋̍͌͠ͅF̶̨̨̡̬̣̜͙̼̙̙̗̘͎̼̙͙̙͇͈̌̽̐̂̈́͋̿̋̋̈́̓͊͋͊̈́͘̕͝͠͝Ą̵̨̼̫̫̜̼̱͙͍͇͍̦̲̔̿̃͌̈́͂̎̌̿̐̅̆̈́̏̈́̔̍͑͘̕͠İ̵̫͖̮̼͇̣͈͇̠̯̱̠̗̞̔̀͘R̸̛͖̞̠͖̔̾̆͋̐̉̍̈̕͜͠͠!_ **

God, if you were  _ real:  _ you wouldn’t let this  _ happen!  _ If you were actually there for me, I wouldn’t be  _ in  _ this mess!  **_Fuck you!_ **

(It’s incomprehensible now: he’s too incoherent and the baby is crying too loudly)

* * *

“-it’s a bit of an  _ odd  _ situation-.”

He folded his hands and leaned back in his chair. 

“-but one  _ day _ , Mom  _ will _ come home.”

Then Byran turned back to his niece and pointed to her.

“She’s gonna come back from her mission and she’s gonna be  _ unbelievably _ happy to see her pretty girl. She misses you  _ so  _ much, even more than I miss her.” 

He made sure to look right at his niece, prying at her with his soft eyes. 

“Right? Has your uncle Brainz ever been wrong? 

Adre didn’t  _ want _ to smile but she found she was incapable of resisting with the way he looked at her. 

“ _ Noo. _ ”

“... ‘Uncle Brainz’.” 

Chara brought it up again, it was such a marginal thing to be curious about but they still wanted to know. 

“Alright, alright. So-”

* * *

  
  


Ever since Adreemia began talking, half of the things that came out of her mouth were questions. Inquiries about the simple mysteries life held for a toddler; where do flowers come from?, why is the sky blue?, where do we get  _ pink?  _ (She was really into that one, kid was obsessed with the color), how did stars get up there? Now Byran may not have had the knowledge on everything she asked him, but he always had answers. 

On one such day, Byran was in the process of explaining how the refrigerator worked. 

“You see, on every fridge: there’s a  _ reaaally  _ long pipe that goes into the ground and all the way to the north pole where there’s plenty of cold. When it’s not Christmas time, Santa works as an engineer to make sure they all work.”

“Whoooaawww, how you  _ know _ this?”

“Mmn- it’s all there in a book you get when you become a parent. Your mother let me borrow hers until she comes back.”

“Whaaaat? Can I see?”

“ _ Nnope,  _ sorry. It’s for parents’ eyes only.”

Her retort was to blow the loudest raspberry she could at him.

“You  **_lying_ ** (Playfully of course) you just know lot.” 

“ _ Me? _ ”

He had to stifle a snicker.

“ _ Nooo,  _ I’m not smart. I’m tellin ya it’s the book.” 

“Nuuhh-  _ uhn.” _

Hands on her little hips, bent over to just the right degree of sassiness: there was no way Byran could win this argument. Adre took off to her room, leaving her Uncle scratching his head and shrugging.    
  


It’d be an hour later that she would return while Byran was fighting with another earnest attempt at cooking dinner. Adre would hop right up to him making it clear she was hiding something behind her back. He wanted to give her his utmost attention, but the thing starting to smell like smoke in the frying pan didn’t want to be ignored: Byran would turn his head back and forth so fast that he was getting dizzy. 

“Whatchu got there, hun?” 

“Close your eyes.”

“ _ Aauhh-  _ I don’t think I can do that right now? I’m trynt’a cook dinner and-”

“ _ Doo  _ iiit!” 

She was squirming impatiently while a whine began to build from within her. Byran had to make a hard choice. He turned the heat way down on the stove and spun around despite the grease spitting on his back.

“ _ Ok  _ ok! See look, they’re  **closed.”**

Something was placed into his hands .

“ _ Look. _ ”

“Ooo-kay.”

What was it? It was a piece of tan construction paper done with hundreds of strokes from every crayon in a 64 color box. At the center of the art though, were two figures. One with a green chest and yellow stars, the taller of the two… Byran. One figure with long hair and adorned with pink in every possible place… Adre. They were holding hands and had smiles as big as their faces. Right below their feet, in big big rainbow letters was something that made Byran go very still. She had barely been three years old at this point and came to him to learn  _ words.  _ The kid was so smart she knew how to write a couple of things just like that. What she wrote here:

**I love my Uncle BRAINZ.**

“Ohh this is... ahh- i-it’s really-”

It sounded like something had something stuck in his throat, a tremble found a way to his voice. Byran no longer noticed the increasing smell of smoke from behind him. This was a true loss for words and actions, a mush of conflicting feelings. It was like he wanted to say  _ so  _ many things, so many were trying to find their way out but got stuck halfway through.

“I… I love it.” 

He cleared his throat real good, real hard and wiped his eyes. Byran started laughing, if not to prevent him from tearing up. 

“ _ Uncle Brainz  _ though?” 

He would tease with his one brow raised and his smile becoming something playful.

Adre nodded her head very decisively, like this was the most she had ever been sure about something in her life.

“Yep! Because You’re the most smart Uncle, Uncle  _ Brainz!” _

Now Byran didn’t intend to rain on her parade or anything but he was still teaching her words and language, so….

“You did really good on this one. There’s just one thing though, honey: Brains is spelled with a ‘S’, not a ‘Z’”

“I know, but  _ why?  _ It sounds not like it’s spelled and its dumb. Like ‘Laser’ it looks like ‘ _ Lay-ser’  _ not ‘ _ La-zer’  _ Brainz is  _ cooler _ .”

With no way or intent to argue with her, Byran stood corrected. 

“ _ Huh…  _ you got a point there.”

He * _ snrked*  _ again.

“I like it though. Uncle ‘ _ Brain- _ **_zuhhhh’.”_ **

Then Byran full out laughed. 

“Makes me feel like a  _ zombie _ hahaha!”

While Adre had her fun with overanunciating the name, Byran bent down for her.

“C’mere you.”

Uncle Brainz and his niece had a good long hug. This moment could stand out above all the others, it had more impact than everything Toriel had seen. Byran was  _ happy _ , a sensation nearly unknown to him without conditions. It was more than that to Toriel though, this changed every way she looked at this young man, extending to Brainz. He wasn’t a tragic ‘child’ to her anymore, he  _ couldn’t  _ be because he was a parent just like her. His choices, they suddenly made  _ sense _ . His anger later in life, it always mattered but now? Brainz never mentioned Adre or Chara… and there had to have been a reason for it. Toriel could already feel the fissures forming in her heart for what would  _ have  _ to inevitably happen. Every moment spend with the two children only worsened it. 

After they were done, Byran inducted the drawing to the highest place of honor: centered on the fridge door, fastened there with a ‘Yellow Submarine’ magnet. 

“I’ll get to see this every morning…  _ now-” _

Now he came back to his senses, smelling the smoke. Byran twitched back into action and went to save his-  _ prevent the black brick on the pan from catching on fire.  _

“ _ Welp-” _

He said while tossing the thing into the sink and hitting the faucet for a plume of steam to arise with a terrible sounding his. 

“- looks like we’re ordering out again.”

“Sorry, Uncle Brainz.”

Adre took the blame on herself while looking to the floor sheepishly. 

“It’s OK hun. Like the unholy casserole I tried last week- I think it’s better that it wasn’t meant to be…  _ Man  _ I suck at cooking: how do they  _ do  _ it on TV?”

* * *

  
  


“... I still can’t cook by the way. But I  _ do  _ know how  _ they  _ do on TV. Wanna know?”

He extended his invitation for Chara.

“Uhh, sure.”

Byran looked around for any ‘spies’ that could’ve been listening and he shook his hands eagerly.

“I figured it out.  **They** **_reverse_ ** **the tapes on the shows.** ”

It garnered the incredulous looks and noises he anticipated.

“I  _ know!  _ They take the already made and perfect looking stuff and take it apart real slowly, then they reverse the tapes and dub it  _ in.” _

Adre just nodded slowly, she was already familiar with this theory and was on board 100%. Chara on the other hand squinted at him.

“But… where. Where do they get the finished  _ food _ then if they aren’t cooking anything?”

Byran suddenly whipped his arm at them and pointed with force-

“ **E** **_xactly,_ ** **That’s what-”**

-but he stopped the charade all together when he saw Chara nearly recoil from the table. It took Byran all of three seconds to figure out why they did it. He recognized a flinch reaction, taking his own quirks into consideration… and the reasons they were there.”

  
  


“ _ Ohh  _ shi- I am sorry for that. I was just playin around, I don’t wanna  _ hurt _ -cha. I’m never going to try that.”

It felt worse to him considering that less than 24 hours ago, he had pointed a gun at Chara and threatened to kill them. And like his profuse apologies for that, Chara told him the same thing now.

“No, i-it’s fine. You didn’t know.”

“MMm, I kinda  _ do  _ know actually, I know a flinch reaction when I see one. They don’t come from nowhere, at least I know  _ mine _ didn’t.”

He tried to gesture them to the permanent deformations on his face but Byran wasn’t trying to hint them at the time he was almost murdered by the police. By the time that had happened, his face had healed nearly a hundred marks and cuts… superficial damages sustained from displeasing his mother. Telling his father would result in the same kind of ‘retribution’ finding its way to Marge… which only made her want to harm him even more. He learned to keep his mouth shut and help himself by being ‘helpless’. 

…

Toriel was still capable of feeling sick and this made her feel quite sick. There was one terribly small solace for her to realize though. Byran thankfully was not the reason behind the very same flinch that Toriel saw in this child whenever she wanted to comfort them. Though, it wasn’t like she’d expect nor believe that Byran  _ would _ be the cause. The mutually inherited truth here was that both he and Chara endured some stark psychological damage. In a strange way, it would help them relate to each other in the following months they spent together, which brought forth the following moment.

After discussing the matter some more, Byran was just about done cleaning up the table when he brought something else to the surface; something that he had been working on since he got off the phone. Adre had been cleaned up and freed to play in the living room, and Byran took a deep breath before he spoke to Chara again. 

“So.  _ Chara.  _ You’re goin through a lot of tough time right now. I ain’t gonna pry on what’s goin on but… If you need a place to stay for a bit, I got a spare room upstairs. It’s a bit cramped because we’ve been using it for storage but it’s got a bed and a dresser and y’know. But yeah- you’re welcome if you need it.”

They looked at him for a while, perhaps computing if he was  _ trustworthy  _ or not. Their eyes would drift and deviate eventually before they felt they had to say something.

“Are. Are you sure? You don’t have to do  _ anything _ for me.”

He was blunt with them.

“I-know. I  _ want  _ to extend this invitation- I wanna make sure you have somewhere safe- at least until this… blows over.” 

Chara made more indecisive noises. This was a very strange occurrence to them and they had no idea how to take it. Byran would later discover from them that it was because they had never been offered this level of  _ hospitality  _ before. They were going to find out a lot about each other, and it officially started when Byran convinced Chara to accept his offer. 

“Th-thank you, Mr Rantz. Thank you so much.”

Like every time he heard that name, he smiled and nervously chuckled.

“ _ Oh  _ please- Mr Rantz was my father, just call me Byran.” 

  
  



	14. 13

It was almost humorous how many things Toriel and Brainz/Byran had in common. The affinity for children was one thing (Toriel wouldn’t have guessed that Brainz had a soft spot for them) but the boundless lengths he went for them… Toriel had no idea that the last human who fell to her was her  _ spitting  _ image down to the still burning trauma being forced down into her belly. The piece of this whole ordeal that told her it was funny was the fact she had no idea about any of this when it could’ve still mattered in reality. The meat of it was the tragedy… but isn’t all comedy derived from tragedy or something? With how tragic this all became… this should’ve been funny as hell. 

Just like themselves and just like a few of the children Toriel hosted later; Chara stayed with Byran for a long time. It became a week later just like that and a few weeks had slipped by behind their back before a peculiar question would come to Byran late one evening. He had just retired to his bedroom/office and downed a small group of capsules from the bottle on his desk when a couple of light knocks struck his ajar door.

“Hmm?”

Byran finished a gulp of water and turned in his swivel chair. In came Chara, ready for bed and clad in pajamas.. Byran eased a bit, seeing that it wasn’t his niece out of bed from a nightmare or something else. 

“Here, come in and close the door behind ya-”

They did, knowing Adre was sleeping just across the hallway. 

“-what’s up, Doc?” 

“Hey. Am I bothering you?”

In the most sheepish and quiet voice.

“ _ Nooo. _ Of course not, what’s up?”

“I want to ask you something- I wanted to for a while but I’ve been afraid.”

Byran changed his attitude for something more solicitous and stood up.

“Is something the matter?” 

They shook their head slightly. 

“No… well I don’t know. It’s just- I don’t wanna make it weird but- It’s like-”

Chara had a lot of trouble trying to spit out, every time they gave up and tried again just made them increasingly frustrated at themselves; to the point that just blurting it out bluntly felt like the only way, the very thing they tried to avoid doing.

“ **Why are you so** **_nice_ ** **to me?”**

Toriel saw a piece of herself in Byran prior to this moment, he seemed very relatable to her, but now? It was like Toriel was watching a play: a minimal budget excerpt from things that happened in her life. Everything was  _ there _ , just as it was ingrained in her memories;  _ even _ down to Chara wearing the same color of pajamas (It  _ was _ their favorite color after all).

OK, so Chara didn’t ask _her_ per se. It was… _yes,_ **him,** Asgore who recited these very same words to Toriel when they still shared a bed. Chara had come to him with that very same peculiar question, that extant piece of doubt that clung to them like an overly affectionate dog. 

To Chara, it just couldn’t occur to them that these people who were not similar in blood to them would house them, feed them,  _ care  _ for them and ultimately…  **protect** them. Toriel was never successful in quelling these ‘silly thoughts’ nor could she ascertain why not. As for answering  _ their  _ question… well how could she? How could she try to come up with a condition for the love she gave them? It wouldn’t be like she could even if she wanted to. It bothered the child for so long, they were brought up with the expectation that there was no such thing as kindness: she only wondered what could have caused this… that and what kind of answer Byran would give Chara. 

Just like Toriel expected, Byran couldn’t give them a definite answer either. He was a good guy like that, and  _ he  _ actually had ‘reasons’.  Byran  _ would  _ eventually regale Chara with the tales, depicting various pieces and sinews of his horrible upbringing: Starting with his father’s life impacting his own and closing the circle with his monster of a mother-

_ ‘Oh… right… I have forgotten that humans repurposed that word to describe someone like Margillia.’  _

Byran refrained from sharing details of his horrible upbringing with Chara, he didn’t wish to add to the burden they carried. Instead, Byran spoke of his mother who wasn’t very nice and his father who tried but really wasn’t a father in the end but rather a CO. Toriel knew a lot more than Chara did, enough to know that Byran could’ve answered their question with something definite and justified that would’ve made sense. 

It could’ve been that he was merely incapable of wishing a similar fate on anyone, infinitely less such a frail child. Byran could’ve desired to experience some visage of a childhood he never had by giving one to this kid. He could’ve even, and  _ selfishly  _ done this as a way to distance himself from his relatives. To prove to his skeptical aunt that he was capable of doing something for once in his life… like she would know. But no, his internal struggles played no role here. 

“I do all this for you because I  _ want _ to. I didn’t help you because I wanted to be ‘paid back’ later. I wanted to make sure you were safe, that you  _ are  _ safe and sound.” 

Byran had more money than he knew what to do with at this point, but he would’ve told Chara the exact same thing if he was still stuck in that apartment. No matter what it took, he would find a way to provide. His past didn’t matter to him, and Chara’s blood mattered even less: One day, Byran shared with them just how little _ it  _ meant… and how much  _ they  _ meant to him. 

It had been over six months since they came to him and ‘stayed here for a bit’, and honestly the fact of it wouldn’t have come up to Byran if Chara didn’t remark about it. That was half true, Aunt Loisa sure wasn’t happy with this. The only time she actually felt the same as Charles on something. She wasn’t happy at all with Byran’s decisions… but when  _ was _ she ever happy for him? If anything, Byran was tired of hearing criticism for the fact:  _ especially  _ not Chara beating themselves up over it. They had nowhere else to go and it wasn’t their fault. 

For clarification sake, Byran asked and inquired what he could about Chara’s circumstances. While they were always unwilling to stay on the topic much, Byran was able piece together enough information and join it all together with speculatory mortar to know that Chara ran away from  home  and had a damn good reason to do it. They had told him their house was full of ‘Margillias’ and they had no ‘Baitrens’ to help them. They were treated like a ‘thing’ rather than a person, always being shaped and ‘fixed’ against their will. 

Chara took a window and decided braving on the streets was better than living there. From the initial appraisal of them in that suffocating dress with the partial starvation, Byran did nothing to nay say his worst assumptions. He only felt very fortunate that Chara managed to escape and that they found their way to him. 

In summary:  **Chara was ‘home’less before they even ran away, and Byran…**

“This might sound  _ weird,  _ I’m not so good with sayin these things, you know me. But uhm- thought about what you said yesterday, about being the longest you’ve ‘ _ crashed for a bit’  _ here. Longest from your ‘family’ house, and you know I’d never mind if you crashed here even  _ longer.” _

  
He had those furrowed brows that could never hold still and that huge grin that he couldn’t put away when he was really nervous. Chara was nervous too, not for the world of things that could’ve been wrong… they knew exactly what he was about to say. Toriel did too.

Byran dug himself from the dead end he made with his words by changing the subject a bit as his hands danced with his eyebrows.

“W-what I  _ mean _ is uhm… so you know how much stuff I’ve done to make this place into a home for me- _ myself  _ and Adre. Actually make this place a  _ home _ for once, right? Well, you like it here, right? You’re comfortable, you’re safe?”

They would nod terribly slow, with their red eyes beginning to tremble. Byran continued.

“Good, good. And you know uhm-”

He felt he could say this next part with a lot more confidence.

“-Adre!  _ Oaah,  _ Adre loves ya. Everytime I sees you with her, you’re both lookin so fond of each other and it just- You dun know what I feel seein that she has such a good friend.”

Byran giggled nervously at himself and did that effective throat clear of his.

“I’m gettin away from what I wanna say. If you’d like…-”

Chara started shaking their head and subtly trying to make him refrain from finishing his sentence. Byran knew they would do this, they were modest like that. He continued whether they wanted to or not. 

“-You can stay here  _ forever  _ if you’d like. I said it and I’ll say it again. You’ve basically been living here for half a year and I think we oughta set it straight now-”

“Nn-no, you don’t  _ h-have  _ to.”

Yes he did. Byran saw how they tried to hide their face into their arms and he crouched down real slowly and cautiously for them. He lowered his voice as much as he could before it’d be a whisper and he spoke.

“ _ Chara?” _

He waited to see those pretty red eyes peeking behind the bangs, how glassy they were. When he did,

“Would you like this to be your home too? Just  _ me,  _ you, and Adreemia?”

Chara… didn’t like to cry, their parents didn’t care for it either. Byran told them it was OK in front of him, he told them a lot of things that didn’t line up to their old life. Things that boggled their mind, facts that contested sometimes utter  _ lies _ they were taught before. In this case, the nagging voice that told them that staying and ‘leeching’ here was never OK… they couldn’t hear it over Byran anymore. 

He was never going to take ‘no’ for an answer and was prepared to push this until the end of time. The look on his face when Chara nodded after sniffling all up their sleeves, it was the happiest Byran had ever been. 

It only brought Toriel pain though… 

‘I-  _ we…  _ we never asked them. We were just so keen on bringing them in that we- assumed that was what they wanted  _ to.’ _

Was this really happening? Was she really feeling  _ guilty _ for housing, feeding, and  _ caring for this _ child? No, it was the fact that she never let them choose what they wanted. What Toriel saw here, what Chara was doing; she  _ never  _ saw the same from them in her home. Like Brainz, Chara had never shed a single tear for her. What did this mean? Were they never truly happy underground? Was that even a  _ question?  _ Who  **_would_ ** be happy trapped below the surface like that?  _ ESPECIALLY  _ when they had such a ‘ _ better’  _ life beforehand? If Chara really was  _ so  _ happy up here, what brought them to someone like Toriel in the  _ first  _ place? 

Toriel… She wanted  _ answers.  _ Not more things to make her feel all kinds of horrible,  _ ANSWERS.  _ This tender and delicate moment between Byran and Chara, it only made everything upcoming feel so much  _ worse. _ And there was  _ so  _ much more: It was [ **May 23rd 1992]** when Byran met Chara with a loaded gun, and the calendar read [ **January 12 1993]** when Chara officially lived with him. 

  
  


‘Wait… when did Chara even fall  _ down?’ _

She couldn’t remember exactly anymore, but Toriel knew it couldn’t have been too far off from-

  
  


**[APRIL 16 1993]**

He gave Chara that  _ damned  _ knife alongside his father’s little story about it. Toriel never liked  _ nor  _ understood why they cherished such a mean looking weapon so much. That thing was a tool for  _ murder  _ passed down two generations of ‘ _ Rantz’  _ and it became the thing that represented Chara’s true induction into the family Byran created? 

‘No, this is too much… I do not wish to see-’

**[OCTOBER 3 1993]**

Byran finally told Chara everything. From his Margillia of a mother, Margillia to how Byran himself was conceived. (It wasn’t fun telling Chara that he never met his biological father) He went into the deepest depth into his father, all the way up to how he and now  _ Byran _ made their living. He wasn’t the least bit concerned about sharing his ‘secret’ with Chara, not after sharing with them the ‘true nature of the government’: What they did to Byran, what they tried to do to Baitren… 

Toriel was baffled as to ‘why’ Byran was telling all this to a  _ child. _ She would  _ never  _ share such horrendous information with her children, this was a prime example of why she felt it was necessary for parents to keep secrets from their children: to  _ protect  _ them. There was no protecting Chara from the sordid story they sat through and coincidentally? There was nothing protecting Toriel from hearing something completely new to her. 

Byran and Chara were sitting in the carpeted family room; partially cocooned in blankets in their chairs and basking in the dim glow of a table lamp while the rest of the room and house were dark. It was late and Adre must have already been in bed. Byran had  _ just _ finished on the shock of the ‘parole restrictions’ he was under. He leaned back and relaxed his voice, Chara had just blurted out their small outrage at what he told.

“Yeah, that was a real kick in the gut; not even out for a day and I learn I’m still trapped. Remember, Aunt Loisa. She lives in Pennsylvania, it’s only a couple hour drive from here but it don’t  _ matter  _ because it’s still a different state.”

“Woww… and is that where the crappy apartment came from?”

“Mhm- but no, we shouldn’t be bashing it or her. It was the best she could do for me, she tried everything and then some before having to go with it. It was the shadiest and dingiest piece of work yet, but it kept me off the streets. But even then, Aunt Loisa was hard on gettin it lifted offa me.”

There was pause where Byran should’ve continued the story, instead he just stared forward while his restless leg jittered off the floor.

“Uncle Brainz?” 

That seemed to dislodge him from where he was stuck, Byran didn’t acknowledge them but instead resumed. His expression was blank and he still looked dead forward. 

“Then came,  **_her._ ** Name was a ‘Cecilia Uvetzal’. One attorney at law.”

A digression was to be had, just a little one for context.

“So you see, throughout this entire ordeal, my aunt really couldn’t afford a lawyer or anything. Everything she did was by  _ herself,  _ I mean she went to countless libraries and pried open so many books on this stuff. Every waking minute for her had to deal with figuring how to get me outta this, she was my ‘guardian angel’ through and through. Aight?”

Back to the topic now with context. 

“One day she’s doing her rounds at the law library and then this woman walks up to her, she comes up and basically says ‘I see you here almost every day, what’s up?’. To which Aunt Loisa  _ told  _ her basically what she was doin.  _ Well.  _ It moved this woman so much, just how hard my aunt was trying and how shitty-er sorry,  _ crappy _ how crappy this whole situation was. It moved her so much that she told my aunt that she wanted to help her out with this.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, nice gesture from some stranger is nice enough but Aunt Loisa finds out right then and there that: this woman was a full fledged  _ attorney. _ Imagine that-  _ and.  _ And and and, she wanted to help us without asking for a single cent. She just saw the injustice with me and wanted to use her smarts to get me out all for free. Can you  _ imagine  _ that?” 

Chara wiggled and readjusted their blanket so they could sit up a bit. 

“Gosh… that’s nuts. That was  _ so  _ nice of her, almost as nice as  _ you.  _ I guess there really can be ‘good’ people.”

Byran nodded in ‘agreement’ to them and then he whipped his voice around.

“Yeah… It was all bullshit.” (He did not catch himself with the profanity)

“Wh. What?” 

“ _ Yah- _ it was all a complete lie. It turned out she was working for  _ ‘them’ _ the entire time.”

It took Chara a moment to try to guess who ‘them’ was. But Byran talked about it before and it wasn’t a far fetched assumption.

“The  _ government _ ?” 

“MMmm- _ hm.” _

“Nooo  _ way…!  _ W-what happened??”

“It turned out she was hired by CIA or NSA or  _ whoever's  _ job it is to spy on your lives till they get the warrant to kick your door in and shoot you. Hired for what other  _ reason? _ To get those oh so elusive and incriminating secrets out of me… I should’ve known that’s why she acted like she gave a damn for me, all those questions. In the courthouse, she just wasted everyone’s time to buy herself some more with us. We shoulda known that there’s no such thing as ‘free lawyer’, or someone fallin out of the sky who gives a dim damn about’cha.”

“Ohh my g _ od…  _ that is  _ so  _ bad… I am really sorry.”

“You weren’t as sorry as Aunt Loisa was when she found this out. I remember her fights with my parents before, but this was different. I’d never heard words like that coming from  _ her _ before, she basically told Cecilia to vanish from existence in the most exquisite way possible. God though...after all that; she was in tears with me. She blamed herself for all of it… I wanted to cry too. It wasn’t her fault, she was just so desperate that she let her guard down and turned a blind eye to her common senses. She has a hard time ‘forgiving’ herself for not doing ‘enough’ for me, and she still won’t let this one go.”

Chara had politely gone silent for him while the cold ambience of the room felt so much more somber. 

“The point of this story is-”

He said. 

“- you gotta assume that most everybody at  _ best _ , want something from ya and at  _ worst _ , they wanna ruin your life just so they could watch ya squirm. In this world, there’s basically no such thing as ‘free’ and anything that passes itself as as such either doesn’t exist or is a trap waiting for you to rear your head so it can  **_jab ya_ ** right in the neck.  _ You’re either a predator… or you’re prey,  _ nothing in the middle.”

He had the right intentions… (Toriel thought maybe?) but there were a slew of things wrong with that philosophy. Byran took the words from his late father’s mouth and it was terrifying to say the least. 

“Kill. Or be killed, right?”

Chara recited the very thing engraved into both theirs and Byran’s impressionable minds. Byran turned to them and nodded slyly after hearing it.

“Yep. S’bout it.” 

_ They  _ found a couple of discrepancies in that logic too though. 

“If that’s how it is then… what about  _ you _ then? Or Me? Or your aunt… a-and Mr Rhattener?”

“ _ Well,  _ it’s…  _ huh... _ ” 

He started on some kind of explanation for that but found he lacked the answer. Byran would “hmmn” and “Huhm.” some more until he came to his conclusion, sounding a little unsure.

“Well I guess there’s  _ exceptions,  _ I mean- there  _ has  _ to be. I never asked my father that, maybe it was like a way to say uhm-”

He put on a stern and deeper voice, nowhere near how his father spoke.

“-  **Assume** **_everyone_ ** **is out to getcha, never let your guard down orr-** no I don’t know..” 

Chara with their finger to their lips from thought, came in to help Byran. 

“Maybe it’s like ‘You shouldn't feel bad if you have to hurt someone else to do what you need to do? Like-like they would do the same thing to  _ you _ if they could.” 

Byran was taken from his current thoughts, he sat up with a surprise to him.

“ _ Huhh. Yeah _ actually. I  _ like _ that! I like it a  _ lot.”  _

There was a brief but prideful little smile on Chara’s face. Byran turned right to them and shook his open palm for emphasis as his more excited tone started with a stutter.

“Iii-i-i-iit makes  _ sense  _ actually!  _ She  _ was just doing her job- at the expense of  _ me _ ! She ‘apologized profusely’ to us but we know she couldn’t care less. So like, if you ever feel ‘bad’ for what you’re doing- just think of what they could do to you without batting an eye!”

Byran was so energized by the revelation that he threw off his cover and got to his feet. (But almost had to sit down again from the vertigo of standing up too fast) He almost forgot it was late and someone was trying to sleep upstairs and his voice admittedly got carried away. 

“That’s  _ it,  _ Chara! You got it! ‘Kill or be Killed!’ The only people who matter are the family you  _ choose _ and your closest friends, and everybody else could go jump off a cliff. Who cares if they die? Not our problem, they were probably in the way  _ anyway. Fuck  _ em! Fuck  **_everybody!_ ** They could go to hell for all I care…”

“Uncle Brainz?... Are you alright?”

That seemed to bring him back to ground level, Byran slowed his breaths and eased back down.

“Yeah… what was I doin? I dunno- I got carried away, a little bit of unresolved stuff bubbling up is all.” 

They were…  _ concerned.  _ Toriel was too. Chara only remarked further though.

“You’ve been doing that more since you started taking your medicine again.”

“Yeah? I’m sorry- It’s because you’re not supposed to go off it and come back… I’ll do better to control it.”   
  


**“H̴e̸'̷s̴ ̸l̸y̵i̵n̶g̶ ̶y̷'̵k̸n̶o̴w̶.̴.̸ ̸…”**

It’d been just long enough since its last appearance that the voice startled Toriel, who turned her back on the darkening room and faced herself again. The odd thing was, the voice didn’t even sound all that jarring or creepy, it almost sounded tired. Still though, she challenged it, albeit reeling back from confusion.

“Huh- _ what?...  _ Show yourself.”

  
  


Usually the red glow that consumed everything was really hard to miss, but it was more of a haze from a dying candle that kept to itself. Not-Toriel was standing right before Toriel, but she could see through it. When it knew it had her attention, it repeated itself in the same eerie calmness.

“H̷e̴'̶s̸ **_̶l̸y̵i̵n̸g̴…”_ **

And a barely visible talon protruded from its soggy robes, pointing back to the living room. 

“Why are you even  _ taking  _ those pills?”

No, it wasn’t pointed at  _ Chara.  _ It was pointing at  _ Byran.  _

“I’ve had to take them since I got out of prison. It was part of my parole that I was prescribed antipsychotic medications. They uh- convinced them that I was ‘unstable’ or some bullshit to make me look bad. So I had to take em, like they  _ evened  _ me out or something… I didn’t  _ want  _ to, but they’d could the bottle every time I met with em.”

Chara’s frown increased.

“I thought you said you got  _ off  _ of parole, that you and Charles got some corrupt government guy to take it off or something.”

Byran stood up and strolled right past Toriel and her evil counterpart (Who made sure to keep pointing at him). He brought a dim light to the kitchen and ran some water into a glass from one cabinet then brought out a duo of orange pill bottles from another cabinet… they were unmarked. 

“We did. No one’s  _ making  _ me take these- I’m taking them because I  _ want  _ to- Ok that sounded bad. I’m taking them because they help me. They’re good pills, don’t worry about it.” 

Chara made a whining noise internally. 

“I. They made me take pills that made me tired all the time. When I didn’t want to take them anymore, they started putting them in my food… what kind of pills even  _ are _ those?” 

Byran poured an uneven and unbalanced amount of the tablets into his hand and downed them without any reluctance. He shrugged in a discarding manner to Chara.

“It’s the same stuff they were giving me as a  _ kid.  _ Called ‘ _ Chlorpromazine’  _ it just helps for anxiety, that’s all. You worry too much, buddy. It’s fine… Mm though, I’d say it’s high time for bed for me. You with me, Chara?”

“Yeah…”

That was the cue for the last of the light to go out and to leave Toriel with the only thing that acknowledged her. To which it repeated itself yet again, shaking its runny head.

“ **I̵t̷'̸s̵ ̷n̸o̷t̶ ̷w̶h̸a̵t̵ ̸h̵e̴'̷s̴ ̸t̸a̴k̶i̵n̵g̶.̵.̴.̵ ̸”**

It was time to question everything again, mainly what the trick was that this demon was trying to pull. Toriel had to squint to make out the red mass.

“What are you even  _ talking  _ about?” 

“ **I̴t̸'̵s̴ ̶a̵ ̵l̷i̵e̶…”**

Not-Toriel acted as if it had gone deaf, ignoring everything she asked of it just to keep repeating the same phrase. Only at the latest repetition did Toriel get what it meant, only here did she believe it. She indulged in the same morbid curiosity that pecked at her. 

“But…  _ why?”  _

  
  


It could’ve answered her, but the apparition was gone before Toriel could even begin to wonder why these things were happening. 

* * *

  
  


_ OK so it’s not actually ‘chlorpromazine’, I’m sorry for lying. But it’s just the newer *version* of it! It’s called ‘olanzapine’ and it’s gonna replace it when it comes out. _

_ They haven’t released it yet because the government hasn’t lined up their piggy bank to the pharmaceutical company yet. It’s completely safe, it’s BETTER. Charles said so himself, he also showed me ‘Prozac’. I haven’t felt depressed in weeks, I’m HAPPY. Don’t you want me to be HAPPY? That’s all I want for you.  _

_ I’m FINE. _

_ Everything is FINE! _

**_Į̷̧̢̛̱̥̘̰̭͖̭͉͚͖͉̱͙̤̘̫͇̬̼̞̙̞̤̱̱̀̆̄̋̆͐̂̌̈́͑̈́̽̐̒̂̈́̌͋̌̒͐̓͛͒̑̑̉͑̚̕̚͠ͅͅ ̶̡̛̲̯̠̰̞̹̬̯͖͚̲̲̘͆̆̈́͑̑̋̑̂̒͒̍̃͊͑̅̈̈́͊̆͠j̵̨̛̛̞̫̮̯̠̻͓͚̰̳̣̮͈̖̻͓̳̯̜͔̐͆́̅͆͒̓͆̇̓͛̇̑̃̔̈̏̀̈́͌̂̊̐̐̄̿͠͠ų̵̨̗͇̤̙̬̰͕̤̝̝̹̪̹͙͇̝̯̤̗͈̬̖̘̙̠̗̪͖̥̙̟̹͔̣̱̭̱͊͋͝s̸̨̨̢̡̬̱̱͉̗̱͚̘̘͓͓̗̭̺̗̭̠̝̗̭̞͙͓̙͖͙̹͔̩̲̞̈́́̈́͂͛̇ͅͅt̵̡̢̢̮̟̼̳̦̪̼̺͖̹̰͈̺̟͎̯͚͇͇͓͉̭̬̹̥̉̉́͊̿̏̾̌̊̿͊͗̋̊̓̊͋̇͗̈̄̿͘͘͘͜͜͜͝͝ ̶̨̢̛̠̰̮̳̞̠͙̪̪̳̦̥͓̪̰͔͉̰̗̤͕͎͎̪̱͍̻̣̦̬̭̺͔͛́̍͒͊̐̒̋̊͜͝͠͝͝͠ẘ̴̡̢̗̯̭̬͕͖̠͖̘̻̠̩̺͔̮͚̝̜̭̳̠͎̻̤͚͓̙̳̭̣̖̯͍̘̈̎̉͊̍̑͊͛̾̈́̀͆̎̽͑͑̊̌͘̕͝a̸̤͕̲̱͍̫̽̍̇̓̑̓͋̽̽̃͒̕̚n̵͔̬̳̲̲͖͋̍̆͋̓͊̐̋͐̕̕ț̸̛̗̖̲͖̇̎́̐̄͆͋̾̽͊́̔͝͠ę̵̛̼͈͍̟̼̪̲͉̖̭̳̭̮͓̜̩̘͍͖̟̳̹̖̬̤͔̖̞́́̆̒̃̐́̌͌̿̑̎̍͜͝ḑ̵̛̠̩͓͇̭̫͕̭̼̫̮̗̯̗̳̣̣̰̭̝͓̯̈́̄̅̀̽͋̿̓̃̌̄͛͂͗̾̕͘̚͘̚̕͜͠͝ ̴̧̡̧̛̭̥̯̟̩͖̪̪̰̻̪̻̝͔̱͚̟͓̥̼͕̯͊͂͌̒̃̀̎̇̈́̎̉̅̒̀͌̈̇̇̓̽̄̇̈́͊͂͛̉͗̎̍͜͜͜͝͝t̸̢̧̧̤̞̮̙̤̯̘̺̬̞̻͙̠̻͖̥̝̝̪̭͍͚̟̿̂̓̆̇̎͐̅͒̈́̾͊͋̍̅̊̾͛̐̒̆͊̈́̾̀̕̕͘͝ͅͅǫ̷̮͍̜͕̬͇͉̖͇̖͎̰͎̳̼̱͍̞̟̩̤̩͍͇̟̼̤̏̓̏̈́̊͊̅͒͒̓͝͠͝ ̵̢̪̹̻͉̻̻͋̉́̂̍͝h̸̨̨̛̳̘̠̊̔̏͒́͂͗̆̓͌̋̚͠͝ͅe̶͓̊͑͗͆̎͝͝ļ̴̨̨̡̛̥̬̯̣̯̖̙̦̦͕͈̤̰̻̪̞͓͔̳͙̙͗̀̊̽̉̌̇̍͗̔̽̑̀̅̉̽̐̍̓͋̄̐̔͗͆̆̐͒͘͘̕̚͝͠͠p̵̧̢̫̺̠̣͖̗̘͕̻̻̤̰̝̼̼̟̤̱̤̝͖͖̞̣̣̅̏͆͋̀͋̋̿̔͗̊͗̒̒̒́̆̌̿̉̅͑̑̕̚̚̕͜͜͝ͅͅͅ_ **

  
  
  
  
**[FEBRUARY 2 1994]**   
  



	15. 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm warning you... turn back now.
> 
> If you go any further... you're not going to like what you see.
> 
> Go back to your room....  
> Please.

  
  


**Unknown occurrence.**

  
  


**[FEBRUARY 2 1994]]4991[]2YFEBUAUER-224992:24:29][]]]]**

**22194221942219422194221942219422194221942219422194221942219422194**

  
  


𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄. 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃𝐒𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐄. 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐏.

**A bad line and nonsense**

**_!̶͓̎̂̈́̕͜D̶̨̯̂̍E̶̝͐̄́͗̍͐̈́̈͝Ţ̵͉̫̱̬̰͉͈̹̽̽Ç̶̪͕̘̗͍̫̂̈́̑̽̾͐͘͜͜͠Ẻ̷͉͔̭̙̞̄̿͜T̷͈̳̬̙͖̐͐͋̒̐̈͊͠Ë̵͍́̒̔́͠D̴̨̢̨͓͙̝̩̤̔̄̌͑̿̈́͒̾̑ ̵̢͉͍̹͙̦͂̕Y̷̯̪͑̓̿͐̿̚T̷̡̺͋̓̌I̵̺̤̪̦̮̹͍̫͊̿R̷͓͑̔͂̓A̷̡̦̐̔̊̌Ḷ̴̢͕͉̳̞͒̊̈̉̏̐͝Ŭ̵̜̙̘̿̊̈̔̆Ġ̵̡̖͙̖͒̋̀̾̃͑Ņ̶͙̩̰̠̣̯͓͑̅̏̄͜͝I̵̦̓͆́͠S̸̡̧̘̥͕̺͇̑͠ ̵̯͖̆͊͒͂͑!̵̛͖͕̖̐͝G̶̗̎̏N̷̢̠̼͚̼̫̓ͅI̸͉͎̟̽̈́̇̉̒̂͊N̸̳̺̤͒̆̆R̴̠̪̰͐͒̌͛̓͂̆̈̚Ạ̴̽̊͐̔̆W̶̮̌͆̂̉̚_ **

**LET ME** **_OUT!!!_ **

  
  
  
  


Something was wrong. The bad feelings were upon them without warning, anxiety took to and saturated everything like a poisonous gas filling a sealed chamber. Toriel hadn’t left the barely lit living room and there wasn’t a single discrepancy to be seen except… Chara was gone. Byran was still there, standing behind the same island counter, **alone.** Nothing could be heard except for the sound of him breathing… that and the pills rattling in the bottle as he brought it up to his mouth. Toriel could see his dark silhouette shaking in place. 

**2:14 AM**

His watch showed the same result for all of his obsessive glances at the green luminescent hands. Byran bit through more of his fingernails with every look. 

The front door opened, the front door closed. Byran gasped and jolted as soon as he heard the knob turning. He would hurry over to meet the oncoming footsteps halfway to the kitchen. Two dark shapes met with each other in silence. Charles turned on the lights, Byran instantly flipped them off. The speed to his sharp whispers only proved he was on edge. 

“What’re you- _doing??_ You can’t turn on any lights!”

Charles on the other hand sounded just as casually as he always did. He certainly wasn’t whispering either.

“Why’s that?”

There were nervous movements, Byran hissed aggravatedly. 

“Whattayou _mean ‘_ why???’ W-we gotta _hide!_ **Don’t** we?” 

“What? _Noo!”_

He was so untroubled that he found it necessary to repeat what Byran said in a humorous manner.

“ ‘ _Hide’_ what would even hiding in your own house _do?_ They’d know where you live if they- I-it’s fine though is what I came here to tell ya. So we can juuust-.”

The two indistinguishable figures became Byran and Charles once more. Upon getting a better look at them, Toriel could see that Charles had come in from the cold, judging by his heavy garbs to his winter hat peppered with snow. Byran on the other hand was in nothing but shorts and short sleeves, they were damp with sweat. 

“It’s _‘fine’?”_

Byran raised his voice to a stressed ‘under the breath’ volume. 

“What happened?... I-is he _OK?”_

  
  


Charles exhaled amusedly for a moment. 

“Wh- you kidden me? _Naaawhhh._ He’s dead, there’s no questionin anything bout that.”

“Awwwh no _no,_ ohh my god… I think I’m gonna be _sick…”_

Byran made this low and pained sounding groan before his already pale skin washed over into an ever brighter shade. He lost all coordination with his limbs and hobbled over to the kitchen sink. Charles just crossed his arms and rolled his eyes at the ‘melodramatic’ display he was witnessing.

“Well that’s what _happens_ when you **shoot** somebody, Byran-”

He cleared his throat real quick.

“-well that’s what’s supposed to happen at least.”

“ _Ohh my god…”_

Byran sounded like he was crying with that one, his voice slightly echoing within the stainless steel sink he stuck his head into. He was on the starting line of a bout of dry heaving. 

Again… Charles was just _so_ unbothered that he felt like Byran should be too. The only thing that really bothered him was the fact that Byran was upset over someone’s apparent _death._

“Will you _get over yourself_ already? Like I said; it’s **_*fine*,_ ** Byran. It’s fine. You don’t gotta pitch a hissy fit over this, so keep yer dinner. You ain’t gonna get in trouble fer this, **we took care of it.”**

Ohh that did _not_ sound right. Byran took a gamble and spun around from the counter, nearly shouting at his friend in a hysterical haze.

“Wuh-wha? _What’d_ you **do??”**

“You know how you was all complainin up a storm about all this lakeside effect snow? Y’know, cuz it wasn’t cold nuff early winter for the lake to freeze over? You remember that, right?” 

“...”

“Turns out that was a blessin in disguise.”

“ **_You. Didn’t…”_ **

“Yep! Car too. We drove it right into Lake Carcerem: body, weapon, even those custom engraved cufflinks he was wearing- I mean seriously, did you _see_ em? I wonder how many people you have to sell out before you can afford those things: they were _nice._ I mean I almost considered _takin_ them, but-”

“Jesus _Christ,_ Charles! What the **_fuck!”_ **

“... _Whaaat?_ I said I _didn’t_ take them, sheesh.”

The bla·sé responses broke some kind of tolerance in Byran. His want not to wake up the children went silent to his panic, he basically blew up on Charles following a mess of sputters and stutters… the sound of his fuse reaching the end.

“We _KILLED_ someone!! **_HOW_ ** can you be so nonchalant about this?! We. Fucking. _Killed_ someone! We’re murderers, Charles!”

His friend’s relatively good mood was no more. Charles took offense and sought to turn it right back around on Byran. He marched up to him with his arm moving assertively. 

“ **Hey,** lemme _remind_ you there _‘Mr Rantz’,_ that this particular ‘winner’ was fixin to hightail to yonder **_police station_ ** with a _BIG OLE_ manilla folder stuffed with evidence to **_prosecute_ ** you! You know what that _means,_ Byran??”

He made absolutely sure to stress the severity of just what he was implying. Shaking his half fist / half pointed finger right in front of the pale face. 

“ _YOU’D._ Go right back to **_jail!_ ** For _good_ this time. No relying on your ‘Dear old Auntie’ to bail your ass out when you’ve proven everything the pigs tried to cut out of you. This house? **GONE.** And your little _‘family’_ you got shacking here? They’d _take em away!_ Put em into orphanages or wherever else they toss em: where they get maggots in their food _this long._ ”

(If maggots grew as big as Charles held his hands out, that’d be pretty terrifying… but point taken… Just the mention of the kids turned Byran’s blood into solid ice, he stopped shaking immediately.) ‘’

  
  


With the message out and wallowing in the apprehension. Charles saw no further need to push his voice into that commanding and assertive stampede. He calmed down, but his words were still aggressive. 

“Now, if you wanna ‘grow a conscience’ and bellyache all day about this, you can turn yourself in whenever you wish. They sure as hell ain’t gonna be able to do it _for_ you cuz we took care of it… that folder? We **_burned_ ** it and scattered the ashes down the exit, just in case the car comes up before they were an unrecognizable mash of pulp. So fuckin yourself over, that’s _alllll_ on you.”

He gave Byran a very affirming nod, sarcastic like… sardonic even. 

“ _Alternatively,_ if you _don’t_ wanna ruin everyones’ lives. You can uh- **grow a pair** and actually start living by your father’s philosophy.”

Charles wanted to ensure he had Byran’s attention, so he touched his shoulder and took the hard flinch as a sign of that.

“ _Byran._ You remember that lawyer bitch who was double dealin ya? I thought ya woulda learned from that and we wouldn’t have to have this conversation. In _her_ world, it was either her or _you._ She coulda told her swine bosses ‘no’ that she wasn’t gonna try’ta fuck ya over and get _fired…_ or she’d do what she’s told like a good little bitch and you get it. It was _her_ or _you:_ nuttin else. She’s fuckin people over but that’s whats puttin food on her table… And now we got some nosy little twat tryin to sink our whole bid’ness and we got a choice to make. Who gets it? _Us_? Or this little asshole try’n to sink us?” 

Some of the faint color was finding its way back to Byran, his expressions were tired from all the twitching and shifting: they rested on a sick and resigned look. Charles was back to being his usual ‘supportive’ self. Everything considered: He was still looking out for Byran. So he laid his intentions out straight but softly, as his arm rested around Byran’s shoulders.

“It’s kill or be killed, Byran. Remember? This is what it amounts to in the end, this is what you’re foreseeing everytime you tell your kid that.”

It was like Byran had all of hell to process through his mind before he responded… it seemed he was already shin deep in it. Alas… his eyes finally ambled over to Charles. Byran nodded slowly, impeded by the weight of the sordid actions that brought him here. Charles smiled warmly? At him and patted his shoulder.

“Atta boy. I knew you’d come around. You just needed to see it for real, is all.” 

“So… what. Now?”

Words were still difficult for Byran to manage, he was still somewhat in a stupor that retarded all of his actions. His mind needed to put most of its processing power into discerning that this was all very real.

  
  


“ ‘Now?’ ” 

Charles reiterated, asking for context.

“What do we do?”

“Oh… _Nothing.”_

He shrugged and declared it like it was such a humble thing. 

“We don’t gotta do anything at all. Like I said, we took care of it. Nobody should have any reason to ask us about it, and that’s _that._ We get back to our jobs like nothin happened.”

Like nothing happened? Could that even be _done?_ They _killed_ someone! 

‘They _killed_ someone?’ 

Yes, they did. It came from out of the blue and Toriel really hadn’t come to terms with it. Especially (and maybe _thankfully?!)_ because she didn’t see anything happen! She just walked into a room and suddenly, Byran killed somebody! What the _hell…!_ Was _this_ the root of all the persecution? 

  
  


**O̷͖͋́̈͂͒̐ḩ̶̩̘̲͕͇̏̄͋̔͜h̷̖̩̑̇̃̿̒h̶̨̩̻̝̻͇̄͊̃͋̈́ ̵̛͔̺̬̰̈̏̌͛ͅn̷̳̜̥͔̳͙͇̻̅̀͗̉̈́̅͂̚ơ̷̦̔̓̍̅̀͂̏̕,̶͓̥̗̞̌̌ ̷͇͖̭̑̎̃ĩ̶̡̘̬͇͇̮͍̙̍͊t̵̹̩͈͖̒ ̵̛̣̻͒̈́͐ŵ̴̢̮͓̳̬̖̋͐̐̐̂͑a̵̧͍͙̗̜̳̲̮̅̏̓̌̕ş̷̗̲̥̤͍̈́** **_̷̹͚̼̫̠̹̗͇̍̈́̉͊́͂̕͠Ḧ̴͖͎͖͉̳́̚͠I̸̢̡̢̱̜̤̽̓̓̾̕ͅM̷̳̗̟̥̼͆.̴̧̗̜͓͎̞̻̈.̷̞̼͙̰̦̟̂̑͛͊͐̑̉̆͂͠.̶̩͕̳̥̤̰͎͇̾̆͛͆̈̚̕_ **

  
  
  


[The Boogeyman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1fwoab4HL4)

  
  


“ _Well,_ there is one thing we oughta do actually. Since you brought it up.”

“What’s that?” 

“What we had here was a close call, I ain’t gonna be lyin to you bout that. There’s somethin we can do to keep this little ‘hiccup’ from ever happenin again… We stop doing the business, and our like minded personas _take over._ Y’hear what I mean?” 

“Uh.. what, like _Witness Protection_ or something? How’s that even possible?”

“Kinda, it’s real _easy_ though. The only thing you gotta do is get the paperwork, that’s where we’ll live: on paper. If the cops ever come lookin for us then, they’ll be chasin a ghost.”

Then. Charles went for his back pocket and brought out his wallet.

“Here! I already went and got my new ID from the forgers. Take a look.”

A plastic card came out… nothing would be able to prepare Toriel for what it said. Right beside a big portrait of the same man who came to Toriel wearing camouflage. 

  
  


**PAILURN**

**RICHARD D**

‘No… no, it cannot be.’ 

The picture was like a window opening up, shedding light on everything. It was so **_obvious_ ** now, how could she _not_ have recognized him?! 

‘ _No no no…_ **_No.’_ **   
  


Yes. It was _him._ The way he talked, the way he corralled you into a sense of assurance. Even down to that sharlike _smile_ in the godforsaken photo! Just when Toriel could begin to assume she had reached the deepest and darkest place in this nightmare, it just kept **_GOING._ **

This was no longer a series of wanton unfortunate mishappenings… _no_ no, it went beyond that at the cursed jacket. But now? This was a _conspiracy,_ everything from before and everything that would happen next was _bound_ to happen. They were _always_ going to happen and there was nothing she or _anybody_ could do about it. 

T̷̮̹̓h̷͕́̀ͅi̸̙͑s̴͔̒ ̷̬̏i̸̙͋s̸̬̿̉ ̵̖̇̑a̷̪̅ ̵̹̈́c̴̜͘o̶͍̼̅n̶̞̎s̶͎̊̐p̶͚̰̌ȉ̶͕̚r̴̟̥̚a̴͚̪̾͠c̵̭̏͝ẏ̸̡̗,̸̩̓͝ ̸͕̋ò̸͍̈n̵͍̊́ͅe̵̛͎ ̶̫̇b̷͙̮̍i̴̮̔̎g̵͚͗͑ ̸̟̰̾ġ̵̫̰o̴̟̩͐d̴̺̞̃d̵̛̗͉̽ą̸͎͘m̸̖̂n̵̫ë̸͉́ḋ̶̥̱ ̶̭̝̓c̸̞̠͗̓o̶̗͑̒n̷̢͍͐̅s̸̙̕͠p̴͍͋̔i̶͛͜r̸̦͕͝ȧ̴̟̗c̵̫̺̽y̵͎̦̋!̷̵̦̇̿͜Ä̶͚͖́n̶͍̚d̶̰͗ ̴̰̿Ȩ̷̻̏V̶͔̩̒̔E̶̼̯͑̓R̴̛̞͋Y̶͈͉͑Ȭ̵͉͜N̵̠̅E̶̘̳̽'̴͚̍Ṣ̸̌ ̸̃͜i̸͍̅ñ̷̘ͅ ̸̫͓̑͝õ̶̖̙n̶̩̜͒̋ ̶̡̛̪i̷͍̓̅t̷͈̞̔!̶̼̞̌̎

It did a sneak attack on her, she just couldn’t keep up. The scene did not care for her, it kept going as if _nothing_ was wrong. 

Charles **_Pailurn_ **grinned his dishonest and devious smile.

“Pretty _cool,_ huh? They did a _great_ job!”

Byran just shrugged, he was deaf to everything Toriel started to shout at him. Against everything she knew, Toriel vainly hoped that just now: just for _this_ one time that he’d be able to hear her. That she could actually _help_ him. **But there was nothing she could do,** too little and too late. 

Byran just handed the damning piece of truth back and cocked one of his brows. 

“Did they fake the buzzed haircut _too?_ Or did you _actually_ get your hair cut off to make that picture?”

The liar laughed.

“Guilty as _charged.”_

And he pulled off the wool hat to reveal the same haircut the captain wore before he _ravaged_ the underground. 

“But _yeah._ I’ll get you set up with one _too._ ”

“Thanks, I guess… for uh, looking out for me.”

“O̶f̵ ̷c̵o̶u̷r̷s̸e̵,̵ ̴B̸y̸r̸a̴n̵.̵.̷.̷ ̴I̶'̷d̵ ̸n̸e̸v̷e̷r̸ ̵l̴e̴t̵ ̸y̴o̴u̴ ̴f̶a̷l̴l̸ ̴d̶o̵w̶n̸.̵”

**Brainz fell down at approximately 2:45 AM on March 14th**

H̴͚̤͎̼̩̭̺̥̞͆̓̈͘ḁ̴̡̭̑̅̔̕ͅv̴̱̣̯͙̱̈́̀e̴͙̞̫̒͑͆̊͋̀̕͘ͅ ̶̳̮͗̈͋̓̑͛̿͑Ǐ̵̡̟̫̰̑̽͋ͅ ̴̨̦͈̯̗̰͝ë̸͔͎̭̮̮́̌͑̈́͊̉͘͘̕͠v̴̙̰̲̹̦͇̜͖̓e̸̢̩̜̗̙̊̎͜r̶̢̡̖̘̫̭̖̓͊͂͆̍̊̎̒̉͜ ̸̛̪̋̉̽̉̌l̴̡̛͇̗̗͇̖̾̒̀̈́̈́̄͠e̵̳͇͚̗͓̚ͅt̶̬͖̱̩̔̆̂͑̂̃̎ ̷̪̿͑͂̂̓̈́͒̉͘y̸̛͔̻͍͓̯̑̔̏̾͗͜ͅô̴̗̠͆̅̑͑͊̃͠͝ǘ̴̩̱̬̐̿̈́̆͐͝ ̵̧̭̺͍̪̩͎̯͇́̐͐̓̍͝D̷̢̨̗͕͉̥̞̣͍̠̈́̄̍̈̈́̈́͑̊̚O̸̢̜͚̜̝͌W̶̼̗̮̙͓̞̝̮̮̤̾̏̔͌̇̈́̄̃̏N̷͉͚̙͖̤͎̟̈́̆͝?̵̛͓̪͓̜͙͖̲̯͒̏̚̚

**Don’t worry, we just wanna take Brainz down.**

Ȳ̴̨̟̥͓̜͚̤̇̀̃̓̚͠o̷̢̪̼͈͙̜̘̦̎̑̓ͅư̷͈̝͔̫̭̙̹̐̑͐̒̄̎̕'̶͈̝̟͇̫͈͈͎͔͖̔͗̒̄̿͊̿̋r̸͖͚͙̹͐̏̏̕e̴̙̩̞̬͛̔̍͋̿̇͂́̽ ̷̨͉̝̝̄̅̔͝l̸̢̜̻̝̱͕̯̅̊̉̂̈͘ĩ̷̛̻̝̻͎̼̳̳̖͇̏̊͊͊͋̋̆k̶̮̤̈́̒̃̀͆̅̂ẽ̸̢̛͈̻͇̖̖͕̝̓̇͛͌̂͊͌ ̸̖͓̀̓̈́͌̓̃͗̈́́a̸̺̫͍͚̳͇̻̒̔̿̍͛͐͋̚͝ ̷̫̲̲̫̄͑͑͝ş̷̦͈͐̊̚o̴̧̨̪͚̹̻͔͙͛͐̎͋͂̿̚̚n̷̡̝̟͖̣̟̗͌̈́̓̾̑͌ ̴̫̈̒̚ẗ̷̘́̍͆̾̔͂͒̕ǫ̶̖͎̍͂̂̊̆̽ ̸̡̜̯͎̤̦͚͒͆͛̆̓̓͌̓̃̚m̸̼̞͚̲̯͌̀e̶̛̞̼̞̣͔̭̞̰͒́̅͐͐͆̉͝,̶̛̙̜̬̹̤̪̟̜̣ ̸̨͖͉̼͉̯͗͒̑ͅI̵̜͚̍̈́̆͝'̸̮͕̟̀̉̆̍ļ̴̢͔̻̠̣͍̰̼̞͌͒͐̈́͗͊l̵̢̛̿͌̉͗̃ ̷̡̢͈̦͚̭̼͈̩̮̈̾̚ä̷̡͎̼̪͓͎̠́̐̎̈́̍̈̋ḷ̶͙̺̭̯͚̘͂w̵̧̬͈̰̬͙̦͉̩̎̃̈̈́̎͆ẵ̴̛͚̺̯ÿ̸͎̈́̒̔̚s̶̨͎̪̦̠̠͐̈́̎͋̐͆̾̽͜ ̶̨̬̹̖̭̄͊̆̔͗͝͠͝l̵̫͍̣̠͈͕̪̓̔͒͑̂̌̕͠ǫ̴̢͇̩̒̏̽̽̾̏̔̍́o̷̱͈̮̭̱͗̍̌̈́̄̄̆̍̕͠k̸̻̭͈̠̦̥͈̃̄̈́̚͘̕͝ ̵̡͙̻̝̳̝̟̅͑̕͜ą̸̧̡̢̡̧̭̣͇̝̄́̋f̴̨̨̧̮̣͉̝̃̽̈́̏̃̇̕ẗ̵͔͚͓̩̹̭̬͎̂̋͊̒̄e̸̡͉̮̰̝̞͆͗͑̃̎͐r̶̨̤̜̳̟̭͇̟̞̲̆̋̾̃̏̐̉͂̄ ̶̧͉͍͕̩̦͎͛̐̅͒̈́̂ͅm̴̖̄̍̅̈́̆̆̕͠͝y̵̭̹̩̠̖̣̠̗̓̇͜ ̸̫̗̈̌c̶̢͉͖̺̝̭͎͙̝͉̉̐̎͑̿̓͘h̸̢̛̜͕̺͙͍̠͚̤̪̀͌̄̋̇̂̈͑͘i̸̛̜͒̊̾͒̾̂̈́ͅḻ̸̲̤͍̮͖̹͑̍̄͜d̵̻͙̯̳̳̼͓̜͌͘r̶̨͙̪̝̅́͋͑̓̏̑͊̌͘ě̶̛̮̲̜̼͒̍̒́̏̈̚̚͜ṇ̷̩͕̲̇̐͗̀̒̾̏̄/̶̛̘̭̯͖̇̉͑̈͜

**-these’re like my children in a way. I gotta look after em above anything else. If anything really bad happens-**

**Ȋ̴͓̝̗̥͈̈́'̷͉̠̔̄ḹ̶͖̲̇̂̈̊͘̕ͅļ̸̧͈̖̩̮̉̇̄ ̴̛̬̣͍͙͆̑̈́͂̅̾n̵͕̞̦̈̎͌͌͐͆̐͛̚͜ė̴̡̧̲̥̲̰͈̩͌͊̿̓̔͒͋ṿ̶̧̛̲̈́̀͂̔ë̸̥͇̘͙̰͔̝ȑ̸͚̗͍̙͉͌̀ ̵̗͛̓͋̄́̑̕͝ḻ̵̮̳̖̮̒̑̓̍̾͊͗e̵̱̬̱̓̕t̶̡̘̺̘͉͉̊ ̸̢̹̭̫̑ä̵̢̯͍̣̯͙̟̹̝̾̈̍͊̎͘̚̕ņ̷̛̯̜̂̆͌͐̈́͠͠ẙ̴͖̟̠̓͐̎̀̌̓͐̚͠ẗ̷͙̦̞̻̼̜̩̗́̅̆͛̏̀̄̓̐͗h̵̡̖͇̉͆̂̑̒͂į̸͔̘͌̀́̈́̏̆͛̊̑͘n̶͔̞͐̃̆͂̽̒̍̈́͝g̶̡̘̱͎͍̼͌͋͊͊͊̈́̈́̐ ̵̰̈̎̑̾̃b̶̼̠͚͙̉̐ḁ̸̼͉̱̮̱̤̈́̍͗̈́d̶̡̨͇̭̻̠̖̈͊̈ ̶̜̠͚̙̖̗͍͔̈́̎̆͆̀̾̇̎͘͘h̵̬͈̜̮́̈́̇̈́̉̀͛͠ȃ̷̲͎̙̺̰̰̙̠͙̒̋̊͘p̵̖̳͔͓̰̘͔̭͎̏̆͠ͅp̵͈̞̗̂̑͗̄͑͆͑̚̕e̶̳̲͛͑̉̽̈̍̂̐̔ñ̸͔̙̯͇͈̟̯͚͒͠͠ ̸̣̝͚͓̈́̽̿̀͑͒̕͠t̵̨͓̤̳̦̫͂̆̽̽̑̈́͘͝o̸̟͂̃̊ͅ ̵͖̺͚̋̌̈́͐͒͜ẏ̶͕̦̫̙̹͇͈̠̯̐͒o̷̧͍̖̲͉͓̿̏̕u̷̠͌̋.̸̱̳̰̳̫͆̎̽̄͂͆͝͝**

**M̴̭͎̮̜̦̻͔̮̳͌̎̋̒̈͒͑̄́͠y̸̡̡̧̨̛̲̝̪̻̰͍̤̖̪͉͇͖̩̳̝̫̼̜̞͎̠̬͎͓͖̙̩͚̰̠͎̲̯̩͛̄̀̾̀̄͐́͆͂̇̆͆̐̾́̌̒͆̽̉̃̉̓͗̓͌̌͘̕͘͝ͅ ̴̧̩̰̰̟̪͍̪̬̬̭͖̩̱̗̞̳͉͐͊̑̆̎̑͊͘ͅČ̴̟̯̼̭̩͕̯̜͋̿̌̿̃̕͝H̷̡̛̻̝͕̙̘̠͕͇̦̜̘̙̙̜̹̗̯͚̞̩̩̫̥͎̤͎̞͕͚̻͇͇̪͍͇̖͍̲̤̉̓̌̑̾̈͋͛͌̆̃͗̉͂͜͠͝ͅI̸̦̜̯͔̓̋̑͂̇̿̏̾̂̂̾͑̇̆̋͊̅̇̒̓͛̾͘̚̚̚̚͠L̵̨̡̨̨̛͖͙͇̹̱̯̠̠͇͕̦̤͇͈̟̦̱̮̜̣̹̱͖͉̜̻̗̹͕̐́̈́͂̓̒́̎̐̋̑̔̒̄̇̉̓͂̓̑̂̆̉̅̕͘̚D̷̢̢̜̣̮̥̙̘̳͇̘̘͕̪͍͓̞͕͉̘̣̫͉̺͓͍̻̑͐͊́̿̍́̓͑̌͋̇̿̈̾̔̂͜͝͝ͅ.̴̹̫̖͎͇̤̯͔̳͚̺̟̖̪͎̬̩͖̜̫̞̦̲̪̳̥̪̘̩̝̳̭̘̙̣͕̺̀̓̇̍̈̓͊̀͊́̍̈́̉̽͂̂̂̊̔͒̔̚͜͜͜͜͜͠ͅ**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Pailurn tricked her again… Toriel never saw it coming. 

**She fell down again.**

* * *

  
  


When she came back to… she would scream. Not in anguish, not in sorrow, not for what she had learned, and not even where she had ended up. Toriel could’ve been used to the red hell at this point, but nothing was the same anymore. The revelation had shattered all the delusions and lies, there was nothing hiding anymore. Gone was the clean halls of crimson familiarity and abhorrence, for they had deteriorated: wasting away like decomposing skin to reveal the red hell’s guts. Asymmetrical walls formed of peeling _flesh_ stretched so thinly that all the faces behind it could be seen pushing and forcing their way out. Such agonized profiles, hideous walls of suffering that moaned and groaned from the deepest places inside. All of the gaping maws and distended mouths became the portals that used to be _doors._ This was the true nature of the red hell, this was all she could see now. 

Then came the cringe inducing sound of metallic bars clanging to the floor and traveling up the decaying corridor. Toriel would absently gaze to what used to be the foyer to see the things crumpling and dissolving into the broken floor. The once impeding structures that kept her _inside_ : that kept Not-Toriel _outside._

It did not wait to come in, it did not take its time. It was there the moment the bars were gone: it strolled inside. Yet as much as it wanted to step right up and plant its ugly face in front of hers, Not-Toriel dragged itself as far as the RED floor would go and then stopped. Hesitating to step into the guts like a child afraid to dip a toe into the cold water. Another trick perhaps? The payoff to its involvement in the last memory? Toriel wouldn’t know, she couldn’t think of anything.

It stared at her without uttering a single thing, the red lights in the back of its head wanted to burn a hole through _hers_ as the thing just _shuddered_ and subtly spasmed in place. Toriel could’ve sworn she could even hear it ‘breathing’ all frantic and broken like. They could’ve been frozen like this forever, and maybe that’s what it _wanted:_ to be stuck here. 

But no… 

“Why… you must be _soo_ happy with yourself. Does your chest _swell_ with pride? Do you feel like you’ve redeemed yourself for discovering ‘the BIG secret?”

What it spoke, it sounded tired and resentfully sarcastic. It hadn’t the energy to retain the wickedness. 

Toriel was very far from capable thinking, but her mouth seemed to have a mind of its own. Spurred by _something_ she felt. 

“You _knew?”_

[Mother knows all...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH2eYd4lW14)

  
  


Not-Toriel lashed out in the strangest of ways for it, lurching forward but backpedaling from the edge of the persisting red hell.

**“** **_OF COURSE I knew, you fucking IDIOT!_ ** **Why wouldn’t I?!** Unlike _you,_ I _belong_ here. _This,_ I _LIVE_ here!... At least. I did before you _had_ to just come and mess _everything_ up!”

The shark teeth weren’t showing, nothing but sadness could be made out from the distorted being, which slumped over like a wounded animal drawing weaker breaths. Of _course_ Toriel was confused, nothing here made any semblance of sense. Especially this vile brooding thing that was now deeply critical about the fact. 

“You don’t understand, _you_ wouldn’t. I’ve been here for _so_ much longer than you, I’ve walked through _every_ one of those doors a thousand times over and I’ve seen it _all…_ Every _mistake,_ every _accident,_ every **_fuck_ ** _up,_ all the _nightmares,_ the _terrors,_ the **_regrets,_ ** and the **_DEATHS…_ **ohh the deaths, so so much death…”

It looked away from her briefly and started to giggle maniacally. A feverish little laugh that ended as a guttural groan, one that the many faces in the walls would follow. There was no end to it, it chilled Toriel to the bone. 

Nothing but a whisper, slowed and forlorn, would continue to address her. 

“This place. It’s _shame…_ never to heal, it’ll never go away just like like the festering pus spewing wound that **_YOU-”_ **

Suddenly its claw shot out to her, something further unexpected happened though. It was like a threshold had been crossed by its arm as it outstretched beyond the remaining red flooring. The arm completely lost its color and dissociated into this blurry _writhing_ looking thing. Not Toriel reacted to this as a real person would as if it felt a great deal of pain. It snatched its arm back with a terrible sounding snarl followed by a seething hiss as it watched the color bleed back into its unsteady limb.

You better believe that Toriel would actually ask it what the hell that just was, but she really wasn’t in the mindset for that. Right now she was up to processing the moaning faces behind her. Not Toriel wouldn’t address it either, continuing from where it left off, rubbing its smoking arm. 

“You. That you. You inflicted-”

It gave a single sly chuckle.

“I’ll admit. After everything this old dog’s been through, I didn’t think that you would have such an _impact_ on us, heh… So you could _imagine_ my surprise when I turned into a six hundred pound, hunk of mutton with agoraphobia.”

Well that was just simply mean, and it intended to further the wound. 

“ _Oh._ Did you think I was trying to _flatter_ _you_ or something?”

More laughter, residual wickedness carried by how hard it cackled at her.

“You question what I am, but I am _nothing._ A mere _‘hallucination’_ from all the determination you quaffed, a ghost, a _spook…_ a bad dreem. *Aheh*. _I…_ am nothing but a delineation of the worst failures you’ve committed. A culmination of all your ‘hopes and dreams’ turned rotten. I’m a real _shameful display.”_

Even more shots were fired at her. What she had done was greatly displease the demon and this was its way of getting back at her. Cutting her down in every way it could. Even here it was amused with itself, putting on a half cocked grin with all those teeth.

“I used to be a lot _smaller!_ And I had these _adorable_ little pigtails.” 

Finally, Toriel would _do_ something. By all means she was nowhere close to fathoming this clusterfuck she was standing in. It was fine, she was far more concerned with the deadly apprehension surrounding Pailurn now. 

“What _happened….”_

As gravely as she could put it, directly cutting off the demon.

“What?”

Now it was her turn to push, you couldn’t stop her now.

“ **Charles-** _Pailurn._ **What did he** **_do??_ ** **What happened next??”**

All the confusion and interest faded away from the thing.

“ _Ohh._ **_That.”_ **

And it sighed, shaking its head before it finished by smacking its withered lips. 

“That doesn’t matter. You see how I was able to walk in here? You can leave now, you walk out that front door and keep going: and this is finally over for you.” 

Was it _really_ telling the truth? Presenting Toriel with the sole thing she could desire after being reduced to this? Even if it _was…_ Toriel had no intention of leaving, not until she knew _everything._ And if this was truly her only opportunity ‘out’, that denying it would confine her to this limbo? That was more than fine for her, it just meant she’d have more time to understand things. So she told the walking talking ‘representation’ just that. It forced itself to laugh at her. 

“No no no, that’s not- I’m being completely serious with you. You can _walk_ out of here right _now_ and I’m not going to try to stop you. I _want_ you out too, _M’kay?”_

“If you want me to leave. Then _tell_ me about **_P a i l u r n . . .”_ **

It got real angry again and spasmed with its yell.

“ **_WHY_ ** do you _want_ to know?! It’s not like it makes any bit of a **_fucking_ ** difference! We **_can’t_ ** DO anything for him! Do you not know how this _works?!_ You stupid **_cow!”_ **

It wasn’t going to be reasoned with, it never was. Toriel wasn’t being optimistic when she asked for it. She knew from the moment it started talking that she would only answer her question the same way everything else was revealed to her. This was just a warning for Not-Toriel… in a strange way: Toriel felt that the thing deserved so much. 

“Then I will discover it, myself.”

That was her, bracing to turn around for another look down the evolved nightmare. Being distracted by the increasingly upset demon from behind would help her. It piped up, sounding more desperate as it went on.

“ _Nooo_ no no no **no.** You’re not _doing_ that! You’ve already seen **_enough!_ ** All it’s going to do is _fuck you up more!_ You don’t have _ANY_ right to do this! I don’t _want_ you to _see!_ It’s not _FAIR!_ **_I’m not going to let you DO THIS!”_ **

Toriel had conducted her first steps into the ‘new hell’ and started leaving Not-Toriel behind. She admittedly turned around after hearing the threat, and saw the doppelganger take a running start for her. It took one step onto the fleshy ground and half of its being turned black. It struggled to pull itself back out in the panic that ensued. There was no telling what was happening to it, but it certainly wasn’t happy. It gave up the notion to run after Toriel and resorted back to yelling for her. 

  
  


“ **_HEY! H̸E̵E̷E̷E̸E̸̟̼̭̮̣̟̰̫̬̭͙̣̼̲̬̩̼͋̈͐̋̇̊͒͑͝E̵̛̘̗̱͎̱̺̺̼͉͍̙̭̱͑̓̃̽͌͑̿̅̍̒̏͌̃͗̆̀̑́́̍͛̈́̅̓͛̚͜͝ͅË̴̱̫̺̺͍̐̑͆̉͛͊̿̐̇̕͝͠Ę̷̢̢̛̘͙̖̝̲͉͇̦̬͉̲͙̞̼͓͓̪̳̤̲̙͍̟̦͉͔̈́̊̑̉̄͑͛̍̓̒̓̎̍̈͂̅̑̆̂̓̔̈́̓̆͐̀͊̍̾̓̆̋͗͐̅̏͛̀̑̏͊̈͆̈̕͘͘̕͠͝͝͝ͅͅȀ̸̢̨̡̧̛̳̫͍̣̤͚̟͈̫̞̙͔̝̺͇͉̖̳̠̩̼͈̺̯͖̞͉͍̫̠͔̙̜̜̋̈́͗̄̈́͛̀͘͝͝Ȁ̷̡̢̛̛̩̦͉͕̳͓̖͉̦̥̥͇̜̻̲̥͖̗͔̩̰̽̾̓͊̃͋̔̃͗͛͋̓̇̽̎̾̍̌̎̍̂̈́͑̾̇̈͌̈́͌̊̽͐́͒̃͑̾̈́̇́̈̒̅̓̔̇͌͌͛̚͘̚͝͝͝͝ͅĄ̶̨̧̧͈̦̠̠̣̣͓̼͂̍͐̍̒̅̆͗̈́̆̀̌͊͛̐̀͆̍̾̒͒̔̈́͌̈́̏͛̌͐̐̒̓̇͌̓̉̍̿͐̍̈͛̕̚̕͜͠͝͠͝͝͝ͅA̸̧̨̧̨̡̢̢̧̨̡̡̛̪̮͖̱̞̜̫͎̤͓͇̝̲͈̠̲̞͖̜̤͓͎̠̬̭̙͙͔͇̠̝̖̹̞͙͉̞̖͇̫̤͉̠̘̮̯̤̩͉͍̯̩͓͈̞͈̞̩̭̬̤͉̘̘͎̳̝͖̬̞͓͕͉͉͎̜͕̹͖̜͓̩̙̠͉̤̳̅̔̓̍͒̈́̃̓͆͑̍̏͆̑̐̇̑͋͊̏͊͛̄͌̓̈́̕̚͘̚͜͜͝͝ͅȀ̷̢̨̨͍͖̩͙͕̱̗̳̦̠̗̮͇̳͉̤̤̝͇̰̖̤̝̙͕̜͕̩̰̗̺͈̝͉̫̼̈́͌͆̉̒̋͛̄͆̎̓̄̈͐̔̉̿̐̌̆̌̉̑́͆̽͊̈́̈̏͆̄̐̊͊̍̒̊̈́͆̏̆͜͜͝͝Ư̸̢̢̧̧̢̛͈͙̰͍͚̠͉͇͖̻͔͓͚͔͉̪͚͙͍̥̬͔͕̘͈̤͚̗͇͉̘͖̩͎̮̱̯̣̞̫̻̖̳̤̦̣̹̭̥̺̣̩̘̲̗͇͖̳̹̮̙͚̘̠̣̻̙̩̩̖̤̮̣̫̱̬̜̥̮̰̲͎͍͓̮̬̦̖̑͂͋̅̓̀͛̓̊̃̊̒̌͗͗̂̄̽̏̈̉̏͆͛̇̆̏̓̾̒̊̓̿̂̀͂̄̿̓͌͑̒͑͗̒̈́̇͐̓̋͆̑͆̚͘̕̕͜͝͠͠Ư̴̡̧̨̨̛͎̹͙͙͈̲̝̼̜̩̘̙̞̩̝̭̟̲̫͍̪͎͈̰̜̯̻̱͈̝̪͕̋̎͒̏̽̋̊̓̈̾̀̐̎̑̓̔̌͗̒̑̈̾̀͗͒̓͛̀̆̄͆̓͒͂͋̃̊̈͊̈̏͆̑̓́̓̐̈́̃͑͌̂̓͑̃̚̚̚͜͠͠͝Ư̶̧̧̡̛͎̝̙̯͔̞̖̯͇̘̮̪̪̞͍̼̱̺͕̫̩̻̦̠͖̱̰͙͍̝̙̩̲̖̫͕̥͕̮̯͓̗̼͉̟͖̠̑͑̈͆͋̐͐̈́̀̒̎̑̇̏͆̍̈́͆̅̋͐̋̏̓̾͗̿̾͋̍͂͋̅͘͘͜͜͜͝͝͝ͅỮ̶̢̢̨͍͎̼̹͉̻͙̱͚͔͔͉̱̳̰̟̟̰̹̗̝̩̪̱̠̜̜̼̮̣̫͚͉͖̖̋͛̒̏͛̏̌̒̂̅͘͜͜͜͜͝ͅƯ̸̧̨̨̧̢̨̢̢̨̡̹̘̤͓̤͉̪̠̙̭̪̲̦͙̣͚͙̘͓̠͔͙̬͈̹̜̞͎̪̩̯͙̹͔̟̪̤͓̺͔̫̹̺̘̖̭̱͕͎͇͇̲̹̜̤̰̮͇̗̮̖̟̞̤̩̹̫͙͖̘̣̊͌̈́̄̑̎̀͋͌͑̔̌̅̉̋̏̔͊̓̽̇͗̅̂͊̃̅̊͒̋̈́͂̓̀̃̑̈́̈́̽̓͒͆̈͐͌̆͗̏̈͑̆͆̾́̈́́̎̊͛͂̋̓̍͑̎̒̔͗͛̊̆͆͘̚̚͘̕̕̕̚̕͜͜͜͝͝͝͝Ģ̸̢̡̡̡̧̢̢̧̗̟͚̹̘̖̬͙̥͙̪̞͉̟̰̝̫̞̺͖̹͙̙̹̼̠̠̯̦̯͚̰̹͔̳͇̰͉̤̜͖͉̟̦̥͎̘̖̞̖͚̲̣̭̖͕̖̹̗̪̻͓̺͉̬̹͇̗̟̹̤̯̥̲̮̲̹̰̤̪̼̳͖̙̀̏̏̌̍̐̊̇̽͆̂̌͂̆͌̌̇͑̋͘̚͜͜͜͜͝ͅͅH̵̛̛̪̫͖͎͙̮̝̠͔͓̅̿̔̎̑̏̑͆͗͗̈͌́̄͋̈́̈̿̀̔̋̈́̊͆͂̈́̉́̒̈́̓̽̐͌̊͆̇͆̌̌̎̃̒̈́̃̄̄̽͗̇͐̈́͒͒͐̈̆̈̎͒̂́̉̕͘͘̚͝͝͝͠͝͠!̸̧̢̡̟͎̘͉͔̩̹̻̟̳͎̪͖̱͙͔͈̪̥̳̰̻̬̬̣͕͙̳̻̗͔̙̣̲͇͔͙̝͚̲̪̰͖̣͈̬͊̉̽̊̔̉̅͌̅̽̓̈́̉̋̄̽͐̓͌̐͗͂͛̑̊̈̓̋̈́̈͌͐̅͊̚̕͜͝͠͝͝ͅ”_ **

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


By the time it sounded completely incomprehensible, its shrieks were already distant enough to be overshadowed by all the groaning. Toriel had her mission and was hell bent on it, no red mocking demons or walls made of tortured faces would deter her from it. She felt she was close now, this reality was saving its best worst content for the end of the show. Now she had a villain in mind. 

As screams and cries lingered behind her, Toriel felt herself being pulled away yet again. Despite how hard she was trying and how well she persisted, she felt like the slightest breeze would knock her over. Toriel was terrified beyond comprehension, not of the hellscape: but just from the feeling that something very bad was about to happen. 

It all started with yelling.

**9/23/1994**

**.**

**.**

**.**

**_._ **

**3̵̧̛̤͚̥̫̜͎̝́̔͐̀̇͋̈́̆̕͘/̶̖͈͗̾͝1̴̛̜̹̜̮̟̜̳̩̓̑̋̈́͌̉̏͘9̴͙̜̃̀̀̌͂̎͊̍̅̾̽͘̕/̷̧͚̥̗̻͎̲̞͉̔̈́͜1̵̨̟͈̺̠̜͕̈́͛̊̅̅̓͑̊͛̚͝ͅ9̴̡̖͉͎̙̱̞̬̰̩͔̫͍̭͓̌̽̈̆̂̽̚̚̚͝9̶͎̠̔̆̉̕7̴̛̛̤͗̓̎̉͠**

  
  


**Ą̸̣̤̦͌͌̒̔͛̋̆̕ͅR̴̮̗̯̝͔̝̋̈́͑͠ͅ-̷̢̡̯̹̯̾7̸̘̻̰̰̖̰͚͈̘͙͌͒̓̅̇̌̽̈̓͐**

**̴̨̡̥͗̈́B̶͎̬̣̳͒̀̔͂̈́̈́̾͆͘͝R̸̻̾͆͐̔-̷̪̗̼̈̽̈́̈͌͒2̸͔̻͕̫͔̼͖͛͘6̵̢̡̫̹̩̯̘̭͍̣͌̐̀̓̾͑**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	16. 15

“How can you pretend it’s not a big  _ deal,  _ you  **_KILLED_ ** someone, Uncle Brainz!” 

Chara would’ve sounded more outraged… if there wasn’t fear in their voice. 

The ‘red’ hell did not abide by the memory this time, it simply conformed and contorted itself into the shape of the home. Chara stood near stockstill in the living room made of blood and rust while Byran paced around in the fleshy corridors. 

“It’s  _ not  _ a big deal, and keep your voice down or Adre will hear.”

It was like the last memory  _ shifted.  _ Chara and Byran would’ve been the same person back then, scared and perceptive to what happened, but  _ now…  _ Byran was the one sounding indifferent, it was like Pailurn was talking through him. Some time must have passed, if not for his demeanor completely changing, but the debut of the tattoo on his arm.

**Now he was-**

* * *

It was a fierce looking snake built out of bullet casings and clutching a revolver in its venomous maw. The thing was wrapped around his forearm, with its large head hissing at everyone from his shoulder. The bullet-snake slithered around as Byran flexed his arm.

“Heh, pretty  _ cool _ huh?”

The children did not share his grin, nor were they impressed. Chara looked intimidated. 

“It’s…  _ creepy,  _ Uncle Brainz.”

“Whaaat?-”

He would lower his sleeve, covering the thing’s head so it couldn’t stare at anyone anymore.

“-Naww, this thing is  _ dope as hell. _ Right Adre? You think it’s cool, right?”

“I don’t  _ like _ snakes… or guns…”   
The little girl had grown up a bit, not out of those pigtails but enough she spoke more confidently. 

Byran wasn’t bothered though and playfully swiped his arm down.

“Aww  _ phooey.  _ It’s a grownup thing, you’ll understand when you get older, both of yous.” 

“Why did you  _ get _ it, anyway?”

“I dunno, I just  _ wanted  _ to get a tattoo eventually I mean-  _ yeah.” _

“ _ Did ‘Mr Rhattener’  _ make you get it?”

_ Now  _ he was bothered, seconds passed before he thought of what he was going to say. The good mood he was in came out with a sigh.

“Why do you gotta be like this, Chara?”

* * *

  
  


- **one step closer to Brainz.**

To Chara, this had the soul of the same argument, had so many times before. It felt right to be indignant and sarcastic.

“Why? So your niece doesn’t find out you’re a  _ murderer? Or-or _ th-that your job is smuggling  _ guns?  _ Which one? You’re going to lie to her about both  _ anyway.”  _

Toriel saw a twitch in Byran, he pounded the countertop with a fist, one of the pill bottles tipped over. The snake arm pointed angrily at Chara.

  
  
  


“  _ ‘Murderer’??  _ Just who the fuck are you talking to,  _ huh?-  _ kid calls me a murderer,  _ unbelievable. _ ”

His tone and his unrestricted hostility… it wasn’t like him at all, it was Brainz. Byran shook his hand spastically while stuttering for the start of his tirade. He would put so much emphasis on the things he was about to list, he believed everything he said that much.

“ _ L-ll-l-lemme  _ just flag something up for you.  **_First,_ ** you don’t even know what that man wanted to  _ do:  _ to  _ me,  _ to  **_you,_ ** if you guess ‘To completely fuck us over’ congratulations! You win!  **_SECOND, *I_ ** _ *.  _ Didn’t do jack- _ shit!  _ That was all on Charles and even then he didn’t  _ do  _ anything himself. And  _ Third, _ probably the most important one.”

He switched to a very patronizing tone, there had to be  _ some  _ malicious intent behind it. 

“You like  _ eating?  _ How about having clothes on your back? You  _ do?  _ How bout not  _ freezing to death  _ in the winter?  **_Yeah?_ ** Me  _ too!  _ I like it  _ so  _ much in fact, that I do a  _ lot  _ of stuff to do all that for  _ all of us.  _ But  _ boy-oh-boy _ it’s actually  **_really hard_ ** to do, considering I got people wanting to kick me in the gut for  _ trying!  _ I must be just  _ ‘terrible’  _ for that.” 

The tone was dropped, down to a sullen response that hinged on him muttering to himself half the time. 

“(You of all people judging me-) And bringing up her? Bringing it up to her? What good would  _ that  _ do? Adre is  **_four_ ** years old **,** you think she would understand a  _ thing?  _ She  **wouldn’t** and all you’d do is take a big piece of her innocence before she even knows it. She doesn’t  _ deserve  _ that, Chara! She’s not  _ ready!” _

“B-but I do! Right? You’ll talk to me about it all the time, bu-buh that’s because my life  **_sucks!_ ** So it’s  _ OK?”  _

“When did I say that?  _ When  _ did I say that??? You’re putting words in my mouth and then turning them against me, what’re you trying to make me  _ look like?” _

“I dunno! It’s just that you wanna give Adre this ‘ _ perfect’  _ and ‘ _ nice’  _ life where nothing ever goes bad and you’re just the  _ best thing ever. _ But you’re fine telling me about how much life  _ sucks  _ and how you  _ killed  _ someone! You say she’s not ‘ready’ yet, but when  _ will  _ she be ‘ _ ready’  _ huh?? When is that since you know so much??” 

When Byran didn’t answer them in time, Chara took it as the answer they were expecting, a release for all their pent up frustration. 

“You were ‘ready’ when you were  _ seven years old,  _ you said! And I guess I got to be that when I was even  _ younger.  _ But Adre, I guess she’s  _ SPECIAL  _ to you, she doesn’t have to get ‘ready’ does she?”

The way he responded to that, it was autonomous. The definite outcome to a deep nerve being struck. Byran nearly lurched over at them, his head throbbed madly. 

“ _ We didn’t have a CHOICE, Chara!  _ You think I  _ wanted  _ to get shot to shit and then rot in jail until I was sixteen? Did you  _ “WANT”  _ to run away from two goons in a pedovan?  **_No!_ ** We didn’t, but we had to deal with it  _ anyway _ and we had to learn to live in this  _ fucked up _ world or else we’d be  **_dead!_ ** But’chu you know what? You’re actually  _ right _ actually! Yeah! I  _ don’t  _ plan on ever showing her this, yeah: how bout that?”

He became derisive out of anger and spite, pretending to scorn himself in an unstable display of his emotional state.

“I am just  **_sooo_ ** _ *HORRIBLE*  _ that I don’t want to inflict all this on a little girl! I’m just the worst! And even though you’re already in hell with me, I’m just a  _ piece of shit  _ for telling you everything I learned so you could be  _ SAFE  _ out there! You are so damn right, I’m worse than my  _ mother!  _ Hell, I’m worse than  _ your  _ mother from the sound of it!” 

From how they recoiled, from the little shudder Chara did: Byran threw a blow they never saw coming and it  _ hurt.  _ Now… if he had a minute to dwell and think about what he just said, he would’ve calmed down, but that wasn’t going to happen now. Chara would escalate this in a way that would never come back down. It started with screaming at the top of their lungs, arms thrown behind their back and their signature blush in full bloom.

“ _ You know what?  _ You  _ ARE  _ worse than them!  _ YOU’RE WORSE!  _ Trying to make me feel bad by  _ talking about it!  _ **_You don’t even KNOW what they DID to me!”_ **   
  


The  red hell  deformed house reacted, a deep groaning sound shook it down to the fleshy foundations. Byran would bring his voice to its limits too, Adre would definitely hear this.

“YEAH, because you never wanna fucking  _ tell me!  _ I’ve taken care of you for three years and you still don’t wanna tell me- what’s wrong with  _ that?  _ But-cha know what?  _ Don’t  _ tell me! I don’t even  _ care!  _ I share everything with you because I actually  _ TRUST  _ you! And I find it kind of funny all this came up because some cock-sucking nobody died when to be honest:  **this isn’t the first time it happened!”**

Nevermind the firestorm Chara was going with, Byran derailed them entirely here. All the momentum in them just stopped and they were reduced to a confused statue. 

“Wh-wha-at?”

“Yeah! You’re having a shit fit about something that’s already happened like six or seven times!  _ Wouldn’t  _ you like to know the amount of people pissed with their piece of shit lives trying to cut a big juicy piece of  _ ours?  _ Remember that white taurus that was following us on our way back from the pediatrician? He had every intention to follow us all the way home and  _ ROB  _ us, he had a  _ GUN  _ and a bunch of zip ties in his trunk! I’ve already taught you enough that you can fill in the rest, you’re  _ smart…  _ But yeah! If it wasn’t for Charles, you and Adre just  _ may  _ have had to see me blow his brains out in our driveway!” 

Chara was incapable of words, they looked like they were stuck staring at a ghost… or perhaps that they could see the state of the house that Toriel could. Either way, they looked horrified. Byran on the other hand was on a roll and didn’t notice, he got tunnel visioned real easily when he was angry. 

“Remember when I gave you your knife? What I told you? That if anyone ever tried to lay their arms on you that I’d fuck’n kill em? I  **_meant_ ** it. Everything I’ve ever told you, I’ve meant every word of it, and I haven’t lied  _ yet.  _

What he meant to be reassuring was actually the most horrible thing Chara had learned. What Toriel saw in those red eyes of theirs was a reprisal of the first time she had met them:  **Fear,** because Chara was afraid of the big monster. The kid could barely manage the words they spoke and had already backed away from him. 

“Th-this iss zz’zactly w-what I’m afraid of w-would happen, all this bb- **_bad_ ** stuff is m-making you into a. Bad guy.”

  
  


**_BAD GUY?_ **

The entire world lurched, seemingly from outrage. It felt like a million people all shouted at once, the vibrations being strong enough to cause an earthquake. What it said, was only a mirror to Byran… as he lost another piece of himself. Toriel could just sense it, some part of him fractured because of those words, he wouldn't’ act right because of it.

“ **_‘BAD GUY’?_ ** You’re callin me a  **_BAD GUY?!_ ** After  _ everything  _ I’ve done for you, for protecting you, you’re calling me a  **_BAD GUY?!”_ **

“ _ You promised me that nobody was going to get  _ **_HURT_ ** _ from this!” _

_ “ _ Well that’s what I thought  _ too!  _ But I was a naive  _ IDIOT  _ back then, but get this: what I do for a living affects nothing. Get it in your mind right now,  _ NOTHING.  _ It wouldn’t be any different if I were shelling peanuts for living  _ or  _ if I was selling guns to people: someone’s  _ ALWAYS  _ gonna get hurt and it’s  _ never  _ gonna be me.” 

It was a side of him that neither Chara nor Toriel ever saw in him… well  _ no  _ actually: Toriel saw this in Brainz, but that was after… 

Chara shook their head so much that it hurt.

“No no no no no no! Don’t get like this, Uncle Brainz! This is exactly what my  _ parents  _ did! They did bad things to people and they became  _ BAD!-” _

Then they dropped down onto their knees, too much trembling to stand and too much quivering to speak without excessive stuttering. 

“-But wait wait- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you a bad guy, you’re not bad: but what you’re doing is  _ making  _ you bad-  _ BUT NO WAIT, NO!  _ It’s not even that, it’s Mr Rhattener! It’s  _ HIM!  _ He’s the one making you do bad things! I  _ KNOW  _ it!” 

As far as Toriel knew… Chara couldn’t have been more right. She hadn’t seen what they saw to come to this conclusion: but she took their word for it. Toriel always would for them…

Too little, too late of course. 

A thousand years ago, she could’ve sat here and screamed at the threshold of her ability for Byran to listen to them. To just somehow and  _ miraculously  _ comprehend that Charles was going to try to kill him so many years later. She wasn’t so indiscreet and  _ hopeful _ anymore though: Chara came to her and so did Brainz many years later: it all came to fruition eventually. 

Byran adopted a much more  _ vexed  _ kind of frustration now, the type of irritation only spawned from being rubbed raw by the amount of times he heard Chara complain about  Charles  Pailurn.

“ _ OHHHhh,  _ for  _ fucks-  _ **THIS** again. I don’t know  _ what  _ your got- _ dayum  _ deal is with Charles when the guy hasn’t so much as  _ spit  _ in your damn direction, but I’m just  _ sick to my  _ **_stomach_ ** of hearing it!” 

Chara became frantic, desperate as Toriel would be if she still mattered. They even clasped their hands together.

“ _ No no PLEASE  _ hear me out!  _ Charles  _ is a BAD GUY! He’s the one getting you in all this trouble! I’ve seen people like him before! He’s gonna make you do more and more bad stuff and make you think it’s normal until you do something  _ so  _ bad that it’s too late! I know it sounds crazy but you gotta  _ BELIEVE ME,  _ Brainz,  _ PLEASE!” _

“IF IT WASN’T FOR  _ CHARLES- _ I wouldn’t have been here, I wouldn’t have saved your ass and  _ THEN.  _ You’d probably be found lying dead in a  _ gutter!  _ Not only did he save mine and  _ Adre’s  _ life, but he saved  **_yours._ ** If you wanna sit here and call him a bad guy, then you just may as well say  _ I’M  _ a bad guy too. Just a ‘gun smuggling murderer’ looking out for his family and friends… We’re done with this.”

“But By-”

“I SAID WE’RE  **_DONE!!!”_ **

Byran punctuated his retort with a jarring stomp onto the floor that startled Chara away from him. With their vision getting blurry, Chara started to run for their room: ultimately defeated from trying to save their guardian.

“(Y’know what?)  _ Wait a sec!  _ **_Hey!”_ **

He got them to stop, but they didn’t turn around to face him. He wouldn’t have sounded so sinister if he saw their face.

“If it’s any consolation to ye. You ain’t gonna have to worry Charles or the business anymore soon.” 

“What.”

Chara sounded half dead, giving a loud sniff afterwards.

“I’m gonna be stepping out of all this real soon, no more illegal shit or dealings. I toldja before I didn’t plan on doing this forever nor was I going to involve you in it… and I don’t think I’d be able to spare Adre of it if I’m still doin it… Got more money than we’ll ever need so yeah. I won't be a ‘gun smuggling murderer’ anymore. Just a  _ regular  _ murderer from then on out. I figure you’ll be happy to know that.”

He honestly expected this to just make up the world to Chara, it only made their response set him off even more.

“Why won’t you do it  _ now?”  _

Byran scoffed frustratedly.

“Because that’s not how the world works, you don’t just drop out of existence when people count on you- I guess you’d like it if I did that to my friend, sorry for being such a disappointment… you won’t ever have to see him again in six weeks.”

“If you cared about me and Adre, you’d do it  _ now.  _ But I know you care about him  _ more.” _

“Mmm- _ hmn…  _ because you know what’s best for everyone-  _ you’re just a kid.  _ You don’t know anything.”

Then came  _ this  _ line, where Chara was completely unburdened from sniffles and sighs. The lowest their voice had gone.

“ **I know that you’re gonna be sorry one day…”**

  
  


“And what’s  _ that _ supposed to mean…?”

But they wouldn’t answer him, at least not fast enough for Byran not to take it personally. He took it as an intentional cold shoulder, the pinnacle of spite… 

“Alright if you’re gonna be like that, get out of my sight. I don’t wanna see you anymore.”

And that’s exactly what Chara did, not in any kind of hurry this time though. When Byran heard the last of the heavy and forlorn footsteps disappearing behind a door slamming shut, he let out a long sigh. 

“God.Dammit…” 

He downed a handful of white and greens, and pinched his forehead.

“I’m sorry…” 

What he wanted to say only came out when it was far too late. To make matters worse, his lonely moment of introspection wasn’t quite that- he noticed a pink sleeve sticking out from the hallway. 

“Come on out, Adre…” 

The child in her princess pajamas cautiously crept up to him, the contrast that dared to radiate in this nightmarish room. Byran pulled up a chair and continued to look miserable.

“I’m sorry I woke you up, sweet thing.” 

“Are you going to make Chara  _ leave?”  _

That’s what she asked him, she had tears welling up in her eyes too. Byran somehow kept his new composure, even though the sight of it made him want to cry himself. He just managed that calm and quiet voice that should’ve showed up earlier, instead of the monster. 

“Nooo. Of  _ course  _ not! I would never do such a thing- I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Then. Why did you say you didn’t want to see them anymore?”

He asked himself the same question, he hadn’t an answer for both of them. Byran just sighed again and shook his head while inviting Adre to climb into his lap.

“I don’t know, sweetie… I was angry, I didn’t mean to say those things. Sometimes it happens when you get mad, you get in such a rush to say something that you don’t think about it until. Well  _ now.” _

“But why were you angry at Chara? What did they do?”

“I wasn’t- I wasn’t angry at  _ them,  _ I was just. Angry at myself, for getting angry.”

She looked into his tired eyes.

“That’s silly.”

“I know. I know… I shouldn’t have yelled at them: it’s OK though. I’m gonna talk to them in a bit, and apologize.”

“...What was all that stuff you were saying? About Mr Charles being  _ bad?”  _

“Don’t worry about it sweetie, it’s nothing you gotta lose any sleep over, speaking of  _ which.” _

He stood up with his niece in his arms, making a quick glance at where the clock would be in reality. 

“Let’s get you back to bed, kiddo.” 

They disappeared into the depths of the nightmare, Toriel had it all to herself to fester in. All of the mental energy that wanted to be spent crying over Byran’s apparent misdoings, was stuck waffling over what he did. He couldn’t have been more wrong in his argument, but it wasn’t his fault. He tried his best but his emotions got the best of him, and so did Charles by the looks of it. Despite everything though, the one thing that Toriel could see in clarity was how much Byran  _ agreed _ with Chara. 

That’s why he became angry. He never took anything Chara said to him as a flat insult, he was just too ashamed to admit they were true. Through everything Toriel had seen, Byran had made so many mistakes, countless that were influenced from all the people he tried to look up to. What he had done them for, that was what mattered. It was something Toriel had to learn prior to ever even seeing a human in person. Being a good parent was hard… it was especially difficult for Byran because he never had any himself. It didn’t stop him from trying and it never even swayed him towards giving up. So while Chara made points that Toriel could wish Byran followed, they were wrong about one thing. Byran could never be a bad guy, not when he tried this hard to be good.

Somehow and sometime, Toriel discovered that Byran was back in the living room. She failed to discover when he came back, but that was because he hadn’t made a sound. He seemed content with sitting there, mulling something over to himself as he sat on his fleshy looking couch all hunched over with his fingers messing about to each other. Time had passed since he sat here, that much was obvious. One of the worst things to do after having a falling out with someone was to wait long enough that it’d slip by without some reconciliation. It seemed thought that Byran made up his mind before that would happen, he got up and followed the same steps Chara did. This time, Toriel felt like she was able to follow him. 

The red hell had failed to emulate the house correctly, Byran would traverse through a long and winding path that made no sense to get to Chara’s room. It was lined with more faces that scolded and reprimanded him for being such a terrible person, there was no point in arguing with them though: not when they were merely his thoughts constructed for Toriel to see. It took them forever to get there, with the red hell losing more and more lucidity. When they finally arrived, the bedroom door would be the only thing untouched by the nightmare. 

Byran didn’t want to knock to get their attention though, not when his niece had just fallen asleep less than ten feet away. He assumed Chara would still be awake in there, pretending to be asleep and currently  _ hating  _ him… but awake. 

He slowly opened the door while making the quietest of knocks for consideration.

“Chara? You still up, bud?” 

The room was almost pitch black but he could see well enough, Byran expected to see the lump underneath the bed sheets pulled over the kid’s head. The sheets were flat and the bed was empty. 

“Chara…?” 

The lights were flicked on and it took all of four seconds to realize that the room was also empty.

“Chara, where are you?” 

Byran was not whispering anymore, nor was he trying to quiet his movements. He worked his way all around the twisted house calling their name with increasing volume and frequency. 

“ _ Chara!”  _

All the lights in the house were on full blast now, even the lights on both porches outside: they illuminated nothing. (Not nothing in the sense that Chara wasn’t there, nothing in the literal sense: everything outside of this hell simply didn’t exist)

He was shouting now, his voice boomed into the night, earning the attention of a neighbor or two’s dogs which barked incessantly. All consideration for his sleeping niece was unfortunately put aside, Byran would’ve felt bad for waking her up  _ twice  _ in one night… but then someone  _ else  _ flickered into his thoughts. He stormed up the spiraling and gravity defying stairs and threw open the other bedroom door without hesitation, only to learn to his exponential horror that Adre was missing too. 

* * *

It sounded slightly distorted, like it was coming off of an old tape.

**|9/23|**

**[9:13 PM]**

  
  


**Dispatch:** 911, what is the nature of your emergency?

**B. Rantz:** Uh hello, yes! My name is Byran Rantz. I live on 2190 Hunter’s Street, there’s been a kidnapping here! My kids are gone, I looked all over the house for them, they’re gone!   


**Dispatch:** OK sir. You said 21-90 Hunter Street?

**B. Rantz:** _ Yes!  _ Yes! 2190 Hunter’s Street! Kidnapping! Two of them-  _ kids!  _ Two kids! 

**Dispatch:** Alright sir, when was the last time you saw your kids?

**B. Rantz:** Uhh, not even twenty minutes ago! I put them to bed and I went to go check on them and they were both gone!

**Dispatch:** OK, was there anybody else present in the home at the time? 

**B. Rantz:** _ No!  _ No. It was just me and them, I put them to bed and then I went downstairs and sat in my living room, I didn’t hear nothing or nobody but I don’t know where they went, they’re gone, you gotta help me!”

**Dispatch:** Please calm down, sir: we’re on our way right now: we’re coming to help you, I need you to stay on the line with me. I need you to tell us a couple more things so we can help you the best, OK? Can you do that sir?”

**B. Rantz:** YES! Yes! That’s what I’m doing right now! What else do you want to know? C’mon! 

**Dispatch:** Can you describe what your children look like? 

**B. Rantz:** Uhhh yeah I can! One of them, my youngest: she’s real little: four years old. She’s got dark brown hair with pigtails and she’s wearing pink pajamas. And- uhhm, my other one is like- about  _ eight?  _ Nine! Nine years old, they got long brown hair and a light and dark brown striped sweater!

**Dispatch (Not to caller):** Did you get all that? Dark brown sweater with stripes. 

**(To caller):** OK Got it. And you said there was no one else in your home at the time, did you hear any vehicles pulling up or driving away?

**B.Rantz:** Erhh, I don’t  _ think  _ so! I would’ve seen the lights through my windows or something!

**Dispatch:** Any signs of intrusion?

**B.Rantz:** No! Nothing! Everything was locked up until I looked for them I don’t- Are the police gonna come  _ here?  _ Or are they gonna look around? I don’t know- [Unintelligible] 

**Dispatch:** What what that, sir? 

**B.Rantz:** I’m saying I don’t want you guys wasting time coming to  _ me  _ when I need you to find my g **\------** n kids! 

**Dispatch:** I understand you’re scared sir, but I need you to calm down a little bit. We have a car coming for you but we’re informing everyone to look for your kids.

**B.Rantz:** Don’t send anyone to the house because I’m not gonna  _ be  _ here! I’m looking for them too!

**Dispatch:** No, do not exit your home, sir: we have officers arriving right now: stay in your home.

**B.Rantz:** **_No!_ ** My kids are missing and you’re telling me not to look for them- I’m  _ gonna  _ look for them! I’m on my cell phone so you can call me if anything happens. My number is 71-

**Dispatch:** Sir, I understand but  **do not** go outside, we have officers coming on scene and they’re going to see you running around and-

**B.Rantz:** Yeah yeah yeah! I know, they’ll  _ shoot  _ me! [Unintelligible] happened before but I don’t care. I’ll be in a red GTO going east if you wanna narrow your search! 

**Dispatch:** **_Byran_ ** I am telling you, sir:  **stay** **_put_ ** for your own safety and the officers’.

**(Not to Caller)** He’s about to get in his car and drive off.

**(Unknown voice):** Is he  _ armed?  _

**Dispatch (Not to Caller):** I don’t know

**(To Byran):** Are you in possession of any weapons or firearms, sir?”

**B.Rantz: (No reply)**

**Dispatch:** Byran? Are you still with me?

**B.Rantz: (Hangs up)**

He didn’t have to hang up. Like he said: he was on his cellphone. Byran did so so he wouldn’t have to answer the question, that made him less liable if he got caught. During the call, Byran had migrated to his bedroom. It was right when he hung up that he reached underneath his bed and pulled out a gun. Not a sealed container and not the  **COLT COMMANDER 45.** It was a different gun he had just laying underneath the bed, already loaded with ammunition. It had something else scribed on the side of it.

**PT 92 AF**

  
  


Strangely, it looked not too unlike the handguns the soldiers brought underground. But no it wasn’t. Those were  _ Berettas:  _ specifically black M9A1’s. This gun was silver and had a flashlight mounted on it, it was a  **_Taurus Handgun…_ **

Toriel knew this for some reason… 

Now armed, Byran snatched his car keys and bolted from the house and practically dove into the parked car. The tires screeched, the engine roared, he was gone within seconds. The world spawned itself only in relation to him and where he was going, There was no way Toriel would be able to catch up to him… which wasn’t a problem being she found herself sitting in the passenger seat behind him moments later. 

So this is what it was like being inside of a car, she’d seen so much about them and knew about one of the many numbered gauges behind the steering wheel. One of them measured how  _ fast  _ you were going, in like… the amount of horses it’d take to catch up to you or something. In this case, you would need  **_80_ ** horses. The interesting feature was the mini dream catcher hanging below the mirror…

Less focusing on the  _ car _ and more on what Byran was  _ doing  _ with it- it was a complete crapshoot. He had no idea where he was supposed to be  _ going  _ and every single turn and intersection was an eternity of indecisive thoughts. When Byran came behind another person in their car, he pressed a button that made the lights emitted from his become  _ much  _ brighter. He pulled up beside them within seconds and shot a look at the driver who was a young (and quite frankly terrified) woman. Byran would traumatize her and then speed off when he decided she had nothing to do with this. He continued this for a handful of agonizing minutes as he drove in bigger and bigger circles around his neighborhood. He honestly did not have to alert the authorities himself as his erratic actions would have warranted someone calling the police by now.

Byran still had his cellphone with him, but his driving and trembling arms made it difficult for him to use it even when all he had to do was press the ‘2’ button for the speed dial.

**> >Charles<<**

**(1)-XXX-XXX-9338**

**_*DIALING…*_ **

**…**

**_*DIAL-_ **

**(** **_3 Ascending Tones)_ **

**We’re sorry, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.**

  
  


“ _ What?!  _ You gotta be fucking kidding me, you piece of fucking  _ CRAP!”  _

Byran tried the number again and got the same result, with the bleeps serving to mock him. 

**_“FUCK!!!”_ **

The phone was angrily thrown onto the fuzzy floor of the vehicle, Byran became further erratic and Toriel… was about to have a panic attack. 

This… this entire situation, it was too similar. Suddenly finding your kids missing and tearing through everywhere you could think of to  _ find  _ them, the way your sanity ripped itself and you apart as you were increasingly fruitless. When did this hell become  _ hers _ too? The waiting was going to come next before the macabre discovery… granted Byran wouldn’t crash his car or suffer a massive heart attack. Toriel didn’t know too much about human biology but she knew that their hearts weren’t supposed to beat  _ this  _ fast… How could she hear it anyway? How could she  _ NOT?  _ It sounded like a battalion of timpanis were inside of the car with them. 

He made one final right out of the neighborhood, onto a lonely two laned road dissecting the wilderness. Byran would travel down this road up until it split up at the end and then… stop the car and completely break down? He wasn’t really sure of anything anymore. Byran almost ran himself off the road with how quickly he swerved around someone going “way too fucking slow” on their motorcycle. Right when his tires stopped crying and steadied themselves, Byran saw something pink on the side of the road. 

The sound of the tires screeching was loud as hell, and it would bring forth the strong odor of burnt rubber. The car spun and came to a stop obstructing both lanes, its high beams assaulted two children standing on the shoulder of the road. He practically kicked the driver’s side door open and burst out, gun drawn and frenzy in his eyes. 

“ _ HOLY FUCK-  _ WHAT’RE YOU JU- ARE YOU TWO HURT? GET IN THE CAR!! WHERE’D THEY GO?! HOW’D YOU GET AWAY?!”

His frantic screaming babble was matched by his lightning fast inspections of both the kids for any injuries or signs of abuse, all while he madly shined the gun light in every direction, looking for the perpetrators. Chara was frozen solid (Probably from the fact Byran almost took them out with his car) with the perfect “deer in headlights” look on their face, Adre on the other hand: her face wobbled at the verge of tears. 

Byran though, finally being sure there was nobody else out here.

“What the fuck  _ happened?!  _ Who did this to you??! Are you guys  **_alright?!_ ** Jesus Christ!”

It was his niece who started it, trembling with her own reasoning trying to come through.

“I th-though you said it was OK?” 

Byran was blunt, his eyes getting inexplicably wider.

“ **_WHAT?!_ ** **“OK”?”**

“Ch-chara s-ssaid that  _ you  _ said it was OK!”

“...  _ what?...” _

Byran stopped his breathing all together, he temporarily paused. It started to come together, the lack of any kind of noise when they left, the fact they were  _ untouched  _ and out here on their own, and that “guilty” look on their faces. They snuck out. 

“Oh my god…” 

There was no hiding the firearm in his grip, that Adre showed more fear to. Byran casually shoved it into his pocket with a blank face. He really slowed down here, like the state of shock had ‘defaulted’ him, resetting his emotions. He simply couldn’t comprehend fully what had happened. 

“ _ Oohhh,  _ my.  **_God…-”_ **

He made sure to look both of them dead in the eyes.

“-Just… my god…” 

Adre was smart enough to figure out she was in trouble, she started bawling, but Chara was still without motion or response. They were the one Byran made sure of… made sure to direct most of the blast at when it came, and when it did? 

“Are you _out of your_ _fucking_ **_MIND!??!_** **WHAT WERE YOU** ** _FUCKING_** **THINKING?!”**

…

“ **ANSWER ME!** **_WHATTAYOU_ ** **HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF!?”**

He doubled down the immense pressure on Chara, and he saw their unmoving facade shatter before him. 

“ _ I  _ was trying to  _ SAVE  _ her from you!!! That’s what I’m  _ DOING!!  _ Why should SHE have to suffer for YOUR mistakes!”

It was the first time Chara made no effort to conceal the tears from Byran, they did little to defuse the sheer anger and heartache in their face.

At this point, there was no keeping Adre from the horrors of life: not when Chara went behind his back and told her ‘god knows what’ on this little walk. And their justified response? It laid out all the mistrust for Byran to revel in. There was no stopping what came out of him.

“By going out at  _ nine  _ in the fucking night with a  _ FOUR  _ year old in the middle of the street, GOOD  _ FUCKING  _ IDEA! You’re just FULL of them tonight! But also-  _ what do you  _ fucking know about protecting your family?! Because judging by your. STUPID.  **_IDIOTIC._ ** Action, I’d say you don’t know  _ ANYTHING.  _ YOU. Are a KID!! You don’t know  _ ANYTHING!”  _

“You’re such a HYPOCRITE! You never let me HELP YOU! You never trusted me with ANYTHING!”

“HELP me?! You wanna  _ help  _ me?! OK, why don’t you actually “help” me by explaining to the  _ POLICE  _ when they arrive, just what exactly you did.”

The anger turned into absolute shock and surprise.

“You… you called the cops on me?”

Adre let out a plaintive sob, Byran did not divert his attention yet.

“ _ Don’t  _ make this all about  _ you!  _ I thought someone came and kidnapped the  _ both  _ of ya! So  _ YEAH,  _ I called the cops! Believe me, I  **_reeeaaaally_ ** didn’t want to, and you can imagine how hard of a decision it was to  _ do  _ so. But I felt your lives were more  _ important  _ than anything that could  _ HAPPEN  _ to me!”

His niece found the need to push through her crying and ask him.

“Are you mad at Chara now?”

Maybe she thought it’d help him calm down, lay off of them.

“I’M FUCKING  **_LIVID!”_ **

Byran was so angry that he was only a step away from breathing fire. He rolled over his fury again and got quiet, taking a deep breath and motioning to his still running car.

“Now. We’re going  _ home,  _ and we’re going to wait for them to show up: because I  _ know  _ they won't be there yet, they’ll take their sweet ass time. We’re gonna greet them, and you’re going to tell them what you did, Chara. And then, you’re going to be grounded. Got it?  **Get in the car.”**

He made his way to his sobbing mess of a niece, he held back a lot for her: even bending down in a means to console her.

“And you… I’m not mad, I’m just very disappointed in you. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” 

Adre was lead to the idling vehicle and helped into the backseat alongside Toriel. The girl was still a mess of tears and sobs. Chara though… did not move.

“ _ Hey,  _ did you hear what I said? Get in the car, let’s  _ go!”  _

“ **No.”**

“...What was that?”

“I’m not going with you.”

“Alright, you are  _ pissing  _ me off in ways you can’t comprehend, let’s  _ GO.  _ We’re going home and you’re putting a stop to all the trouble you’ve caused.” 

Chara took the moment to wipe their face from all the wetness, and then they glared right into him.

“That’s not my home, not with  _ you  _ in it.”

“CHARA! LET’S  **_GO!_ ** I’ve had enough of your  _ BULLSHIT!”  _

“Go to hell, Mr ‘ _ Rantz’.”  _

Before Byran could say anything further, Chara spun around and ran away into the moonlight. He  _ did  _ call after them, with a new layer of confusion and aggravation… but they wouldn’t come back. Byran did not chase after them… he just groaned aggravatedly, the most drawn out noise he ever made. Unfortunately, he really didn’t have the time to chase after this kid: not only did he have to get his other kid home, but he was in for a long and tense night with the authorities. Granted it was going to be a  _ LONGER  _ night because he didn’t have the other kid accounted for now. But for  _ sure  _ were the cops going to take his word for it that Chara was actually fine.

(Byran thought about tossing his gun now, lest the police find  _ it _ or the other contrabands he hid in his estate).

He wasn’t worried about Chara at all, he taught them well enough that they would be fine on their own for a bit. When they were done being melodramatic, they’d be back and then he and Chara could settle all this over a pizza. It was going to be fine.

_ Yeah… Right.  _

  
  


The drive home was mostly silent, Adre didn’t speak outside of her quelled sniffles except for a handful of apologies and a question if she would ever see Chara again.

“Of  _ course  _ you will, they’ll be back from wherever they want to sulk for a bit- I’m just still in shock that you wanted to run away with them. Do you even know how bad of a thing this was to do? I don’t think my heart could take it again.”

“We weren’t  _ running away…” _

Indignantly, but still respecting what she did was wrong.

“Oh you weren’t, you were just sneaking out of the house at nine and doing  _ ‘what’ _ exactly?”

“They said we were going to visit auntie Loisa…” 

“Well that’s an important piece of information…  _ Why.  _ Because living with me is so bad, is that what they told you?”

“ _ Noo…  _ They didn’t say  _ anything…”  _

There wasn’t any further conversation between them for the rest of the ride, Byran was starting to feel bad and trying to validate his feelings would only make this worse than it already was. No need to sweat it though, everything was going to be fine. Being that it was somewhat calm now, Byran tried to call Charles again: manually putting the number in. He was still unsuccessful. 

“Goddamnit Charles, what’re you doing. Did you change your number  _ again?  _ Of all the worst times.”

Just another thing to put away so he could hold a pretty face for all the cops. 

  
  


“I want you to go and wash up, then I want you to get into some clean pajamas and then I want you  _ right  _ back here: got it?”

Byran commanded Adre as they stepped through the front door, nobody had showed up yet. (Figures) 

Ultimately, she obeyed and drooped her head as she trudged upstairs. 

“What a night. What a  _ fuckin  _ night.”

There was no way he was getting any sleep, even if they let him off the hook before midnight. Being that he had a moment to prepare though… Byran had a couple of  _ things  _ he had to get out of sight. The pill bottles on the counter and behind the breadbox were tossed into the basement, some big pile of stuff where they’d fall to the bottom like pachinko coins. (Not before one last hit from all of them, he needed it) A couple of slightly suspect invoices and incriminating pieces of paper were put through a shredder and then emptied into the kitchen garbage. The things he did in his damn hurry went from ‘necessary’ to ‘it’d made the house look less trashy’, Byran was eventually straightening the blankets and cushions on the couches… yet he forgot about his firearm which he was still handling. Byran didn’t actually  _ realize  _ until he heard the vehicles coming to a stop in his driveway. 

“Ohhh  _ fuck.” _

There was no way he could think of where to toss the weapon, so Byran just concealed it within his waistline. He’d find a way to dispose of it through sleight of hand when he had the opportunity. 

“ _ Adre!  _ Get down here!”   
He called up, a little perplexed to the fact she hadn’t done so already. He’d have to deal with it later though, right now he had to answer the door for the… police. 

The police? 

Did he  _ really  _ call the police? At this house? Like, after what they  _ did  _ to him and this house?  _ Now  _ those questions were surfacing, right when having an anxiety attack would be the worst thing possible. Somehow though, Byran only sweated one thing as he walked up to the door.

“Not on the carpet, please.”

Somewhat of a joke as he had redone the front living room with carpet, cleaning broken glass and his own blood from it would be a little harder than before. What would Adre think though, seeing her own uncle being gunned down in front of her like that? 

“It’d really mess her up… then she’d be like me and that’s not what I want.”

Byran decided to stop talking to himself.

He opened the front door real slowly and Toriel was met with another candidate for the most horrifying imagery that’d pop up in her face. Seeing a group of humans wearing gold badges on their blue suits would terrify her  _ already.  _ The only thing Toriel grew to fear more than cops was the military, the things that met Byran were  _ neither.  _

Remember that everything rendered besides the living and breathing were shown as extensions of the red hell’s bowels and insides. Walls of sinewy flesh studded with sneering and mocking faces, the works painted with blood and rust… the nightmare never really stopped being scary: Toriel just couldn’t afford being scared of it and what was happening at the same time. For some reason, for some piece of twisted logic: the people Byran answered the door to looked like they were cut out from the walls. A trio of boogeymen cast from the hell itself. Toriel… this presence appalled her so much that she felt gravely ill. 

Byran tried to play it bogart. 

“Hey. Alright so, you’re gonna get a kick outta this. While I was out looking for them I  _ found  _ out that-”

One of the things interrupted Byran, its voice was a mess of distortions and conflicting pitches, Toriel hated it. 

“Byran Rantz?” 

A shockwave emitted from the door, it made Toriel’s insides feel like cold sludge. Large fissures appeared inside of the home, red lights glaring from behind. The hostile feeling was back with a vengeance. Byran was only mildly perturbed, he tried his best to sound casual.

“Uh- y-yeah, that’s me. I’m the one who called. B-but like I said I discovered that-”

**STOP.**

Everything froze…. Such an abrupt place for it to happen: the memory wasn’t  _ over,  _ why would it stop here? Toriel couldn’t stand not to  _ know,  _ too many open endings and red herrings had occurred. She was prime to go completely mad in this still shot hellscape… but she wouldn’t. Her anguishes would be delayed by the snake on Byran’s arm. It was moving,  _ he  _ was moving… just very slowly. His face had gone blank and his eyes had fully dilated, just like Brainz’s had before he shot her… Wait…

Toriel followed where the arm was going, she followed it up to the outstretching hand, it took all of Byran’s upper body with it into a lean. What was he doing? Then she saw it, the thing that caused this anomaly… the thing Byran was going for. 

The leading ‘man’ had suddenly reached into his pocket and was halfway through pulling out the handle he grabbed… a  **gun.** Byran was dead focused on it, everything else in the world became dark: his world  _ became  _ that man and his gun. 

**E̴̼̟̞̝̋͐ͅR̴̨̤͈̯̯͕͈̻̽̈͝ͅR̷̠͈̝̙̳̳̭̰͔͔̗̖̔̂̌̌͜͜:̶͈̠̹͎̘͉̽̇̽̆̌̀̓̂́̒̍̅̈́̉͝/̴̧̯͈̙͓̚/̷̡̢̗̮̯̫͙̥̜̖̬̗͙̺̆ ̷̞̜̦͉̠̦͖̗͈̮͆͋̓͌̂̐̾͒̏͛͘͜S̵̼͍͔̫̞͔̊̈́͠1̵̡̯̳͇̗̯̪̙̬͇̩̝̅̏͊͝N̵̨̙̻͔͉̗̙̬̳̎͛̋͋̉͆̾̕̕͜͝G̸̰̦̒̇̂̂̊͑̑͆̇̕͜͝u̴̡̢̧͙̟͎̫͙̤̩̯͕̝̹̥͒Į̸͎̹͚͇̥̼͍̤̩̀͌̉̅͋͜͝4̴̛̤̗͓͈̝̰̣̈́̄̓̄͆͑͌͘͘͜ͅR̴̨̖̻̻͙͔̟̟̰͍̣͚̓͗ͅͅ!̶̧̟̹͔̠̬̰̩͙̒̊̓̿̀̿͠Ţ̵͚̖͈̲̻͖̜̲͚̤̮̪̾̇͂̕͘͜3̴̘̗̤̲̀̎̔͒͑̾̕͘͜͠͝ ̸̛̓̾̔̄͜D̵̞̞͔̺̹͎̫̥̰̂̋͊͛̽̐͐̏̓3̸̡͔̮̦̺͎͈̣͘͘T̴̨͚̬̘̻͚͔͈̱̝͚̝̩̓͜3̶̨̨̡̞̟̠̗̩̣̩͓̹̼͋͜͝ȇ̴̢̛̱͆̊̿̊͌̽̌̈́͘c̸̛̦͍̤̽͂̿̔̆͛͛̈́͠͝T̵̢̗̊̓̔ę̸͇͕̮̮̣͆̈͆̓̈͊̈͑͐͒̽͝ͅͅ2̴̡̲̲̺̜̮̠͎̪̞͖͕̹̭̓̑̇̎̐̂̉̑̄͌̕͘͠**

**0̸̢͎͖̠̝͕̞̮͖͙̼̓̚͠2̵͚̦͍̯͇̣̼̬̰̱̻̑ͅ2̷̖͍̹̫̝͍̽͑̏́̆͊̑͐̈́̾̐̑͝**

His world became the blue monster and her ‘more blue’ weapon. Everything halted except him, he couldn’t perceive how slow she was going compared to him. Brainz shoved himself forward and pushed on her Undyne’s with all of his weight backing him up, he had no means or intentions to arrest the weapon. He knew very well what he wanted to do, what he was  _ trained  _ to do-

Ę̶̡̲͓̟̗̳̏͑̽͒͒̐̚ͅR̷̝̬͎͍͈̣̭͑́͗̚Ř̶̨̡̧̞͙̻̺̮͉̦̮̠̜̞͋̆̓̿̓̂̋͌̆̅̾͛͘:̷̭̗̭̪̣̬̤̖̺̭̯̻͓̑̎́̂̓͊̍͑̓/̴̧̲͎͈̱̽̈̈̈́̂̍/̷̢̢̜̱̹̖̻͒̄̏̈́̋̐͊̕ ̴̧̛̪̠̯̤͕̹͗͌̆͊̇͆̑͐̏̽̇̑

Byran grappled the man by his elbow pit and kept him from bending his arm any further and removing that weapon from his pocket. He was  _ not _ trying to disarm him, that would be suicide. His father yelled at him in the past for-

Ę̶̡̲͓̟̗̳̏͑̽͒͒̐̚ͅR̷̝̬͎͍͈̣̭͑́͗̚Ř̶̨̡̧̞͙̻̺̮͉̦̮̠̜̞͋̆̓̿̓̂̋͌̆̅̾͛͘:̷̭̗̭̪̣̬̤̖̺̭̯̻͓̑̎́̂̓͊̍͑̓/̴̧̲͎͈̱̽̈̈̈́̂̍/̷̢̢̜̱̹̖̻͒̄̏̈́̋̐͊̕ ̴̧̛̪̠̯̤͕̹͗͌̆͊̇͆̑͐̏̽̇̑

Baitren bellowed furiously.

“Alright, Byran:  _ you  _ remember how this goes! They got you to open your door, they got you to stand right in front of them like a target at point blank range. Of  _ course  _ they just ‘wanted to TALK!’ that’s how they’ve always done you in! Suddenly, that asshole dives into his pocket and pulls out the gun meant to PUT YOU DOWN! Whattaya do?! You GRAB his arm, like THIS! You’re gonna put everything you got into keeping it straight! If he can’t bend his arm then his pocket is like a pit keeping his hand stuck and keeping his GUN stuck!-”

Ę̶̡̲͓̟̗̳̏͑̽͒͒̐̚ͅR̷̝̬͎͍͈̣̭͑́͗̚Ř̶̨̡̧̞͙̻̺̮͉̦̮̠̜̞͋̆̓̿̓̂̋͌̆̅̾͛͘:̷̭̗̭̪̣̬̤̖̺̭̯̻͓̑̎́̂̓͊̍͑̓/̴̧̲͎͈̱̽̈̈̈́̂̍/̷̢̢̜̱̹̖̻͒̄̏̈́̋̐͊̕ ̴̧̛̪̠̯̤͕̹͗͌̆͊̇͆̑͐̏̽̇̑0̸̢͎͖̠̝͕̞̮͖͙̼̓̚͠2̵͚̦͍̯͇̣̼̬̰̱̻̑ͅ2̷̖͍̹̫̝͍̽͑̏́̆͊̑͐̈́̾̐̑͝

The way the monster’s spear was embedded in the ground, she couldn’t free her arm without letting it go. It had happened so fast for her that she couldn’t think of a retort except the vain move to try and break free.

The man hadn’t even realized his motion was now fruitless, Byran had him locked down and the gun was basically useless.

  
  


“- you see this gun?  _ You don’t want this gun!  _ If you did this correctly, the gun is USELESS and you’re gonna KEEP IT THAT WAY! Look at me! You don’t want the gun! You don’t want him to  _ get  _ to his gun!  _ YOU  _ already  _ have  _ your gun, that asshole is too surprised to worry about ANYTHING else but  _ HIS  _ gun! You? You’re not worried about his, you just locked his up! Whattaya do? While you’re locking him up, your  _ other  _ arm is coming up and over- like this  **_UP AND OVER!-”_ **

Ę̶̡̲͓̟̗̳̏͑̽͒͒̐̚ͅR̷̝̬͎͍͈̣̭͑́͗̚Ř̶̨̡̧̞͙̻̺̮͉̦̮̠̜̞͋̆̓̿̓̂̋͌̆̅̾͛͘:̷̭̗̭̪̣̬̤̖̺̭̯̻͓̑̎́̂̓͊̍͑̓/̴̧̲͎͈̱̽̈̈̈́̂̍/̷̢̢̜̱̹̖̻͒̄̏̈́̋̐͊̕ ̴̧̛̪̠̯̤͕̹͗͌̆͊̇͆̑͐̏̽̇̑0̸̢͎͖̠̝͕̞̮͖͙̼̓̚͠2̵͚̦͍̯͇̣̼̬̰̱̻̑ͅ2̷̖͍̹̫̝͍̽͑̏́̆͊̑͐̈́̾̐̑͝

  
  


He freed the firearm from his waist and swung it up and around as his other arm touched down and arrested his assailant’s. Undyne was too busy with her weapon to see it,  _ she never saw it coming…  _ Brainz pressed the barrel of his commander right beside the yellow eye-

  
  


Ę̶̡̲͓̟̗̳̏͑̽͒͒̐̚ͅR̷̝̬͎͍͈̣̭͑́͗̚Ř̶̨̡̧̞͙̻̺̮͉̦̮̠̜̞͋̆̓̿̓̂̋͌̆̅̾͛͘:̷̭̗̭̪̣̬̤̖̺̭̯̻͓̑̎́̂̓͊̍͑̓/̴̧̲͎͈̱̽̈̈̈́̂̍/̷̢̢̜̱̹̖̻͒̄̏̈́̋̐͊̕ ̴̧̛̪̠̯̤͕̹͗͌̆͊̇͆̑͐̏̽̇̑

  
  


“- You stick that barrel right between their eyes and  **_FIRE!_ ** I want that muzzleflash to  **_BUURN_ ** THEM! You will not hesitate, you will not show MERCY! They came, they wanted to  _ KILL YOU!  _ And you’re not gonna  **_LET THEM!_ ** **_PULL THE FUCKING TRIGGER!”_ **

Ę̶̡̲͓̟̗̳̏͑̽͒͒̐̚ͅR̷̝̬͎͍͈̣̭͑́͗̚Ř̶̨̡̧̞͙̻̺̮͉̦̮̠̜̞͋̆̓̿̓̂̋͌̆̅̾͛͘:̷̭̗̭̪̣̬̤̖̺̭̯̻͓̑̎́̂̓͊̍͑̓/̴̧̲͎͈̱̽̈̈̈́̂̍/̷̢̢̜̱̹̖̻͒̄̏̈́̋̐͊̕ ̴̧̛̪̠̯̤͕̹͗͌̆͊̇͆̑͐̏̽̇̑0̸̢͎͖̠̝͕̞̮͖͙̼̓̚͠2̵͚̦͍̯͇̣̼̬̰̱̻̑ͅ2̷̖͍̹̫̝͍̽͑̏́̆͊̑͐̈́̾̐̑͝

  
  


There was a  _ *POP!*  _ and then everything fell silent to the solo voice of the ringing in his ears. A cloud of white dust burst from the back of the monster’s head, her entire body became the same cloud within the next heartbeat. The spear lost its sheen fell to the ground with a dole clatter: there was no question that-

3̷͉̠͆͠ͅ1̸̧̨̢̛͓͕͙̪̟̥͍͖̘̌̃̓̓͝4̸̝̹̼́̓͆̈͂̋́̑̿͆̚̕ͅ

Byran killed him. The man’s companions would be spattered by blood and propulsed gray matter. He tensed up for a fraction of a second and then his whole body went limp and collapsed to the ground after the bullet casing hit it. There was no stopping it now, the others went for their weapons and the battle had begun.

[You're Fucked...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhD9BusQpao)

  
  


Byran slammed the door shut and blindly fired into it before diving to the floor to avoid the reciprocation. A string of gunfire semi and automatic tore through the wood, a picture hung parallel to the door was the only casualty. A high pitched scream tore from upstairs and that determined Byran’s next move. He bolted up the stairs, skipping every other step as he fired even more shots at the door. 

Some of the doubts present here became obvious at this point, it made him feel stupid of all things as he hurried to hell for his nieces bedroom. There were no flashing lights in the windows, he would’ve come to the conclusion on his own if the front man hadn’t tried to kill him. But whoever these assailants from the blue were… ‘it’ was happening. The very thing that killed his family before, what Charles had warned him about countless times. The terror couldn’t be realized, he had more pressing issues. 

Byran traversed through the hellscape even faster than before, the fissures which now burst into massive gouges in the walls did not slow him any. He reached the origin of the sound and spared no time kicking the bedroom door open and aiming the weapon inside, finger squeezing trigger. He saw no immediate presence and his frantic searching only found a shaking form underneath Adre’s bedsheets. Of course she screamed when he threw the covers off. Byran had no choice but to cover her mouth while whispering sharply.

“ _ Shhh _ -shhhhshhh, it’s me sweetie, it’s  _ me!” _

She tried to start asking what all the loud and scary noises were or what was going on… but Byran hadn’t the time to answer them, he had to tell her what to do.

“Alright listen to me, come with me into my room: sit in the closet and cover your ears and be very very quiet, alright? There’s going to be more loud noises but it’s going to be  _ alright  _ baby. Uncle Brainz is going to take care of it. Can you do that for me?”

He waited for the understanding but fearful nod from her before uncovering her mouth.

“That’s my girl,  _ cmon.” _

The five foot dash across the hallway into his room felt like the longest distance he had ever run while holding her hand. The assholes hadn’t breached the front yet, perhaps expecting he’d be waiting for them, Byran’s room was in the back of the house: it was the safest place he could get his kid. Into the closest she went, he made sure she had ample space to tuck up so he could slide the door closed.

“I will be right back for you, I  _ promise.  _ Be brave for me.”

Another nod, the door was slid shut. Adre was such a brave kid, she was so much better than he was. Byran was terrified beyond ration, but his father’s programming had kicked in and taken control of his actions. It made him  _ lie  _ to her… but it was for her own good. 

He went for his bed, but the thing he was looking for wasn’t under it… at least not all the way. Byran flipped everything off from the box spring with a powerful shove, then he flipped the box spring over for his final secret. Another weapon that had been concealed within the boards themselves, a  _ bigger _ weapon. 

...Toriel was wondering if she’d see this one again. The Colt Commander wasn’t the only weapon she had confiscated from Brainz, it came with a bigger and ‘boxier’ looking weapon and this would be the second time she laid her eyes on it. 

**Ingram MAC-10**

**Compact Machine-Pistol**

  1. **Caliber ACP**



It even had a couple spare magazines taped next to it. Byran never thought he’d actually have to use this fucking thing: but that didn’t stop him from putting everyone in his house at risk when he hid it in the first place. The very thought that this scenario could happen kept him going, the fear gave him wings. He snatched the weapon, the ammo and  _ *clacked!*  _ the first tall magazine into the weapon

“Come get me, you motherfuckers.”

He was going to scamper out of the room and turn everybody in the front of the house into swiss cheese, but a flashlight catching onto him from beyond his bedroom window took his attention.  _ There were MORE of them,  _ they were trying to  _ flank  _ him. All bets were off, and so was the safety. Byran unleashed the full might of his automatic weapon through his own window. It was too dark to make out bodies, but he saw the flashlights and fired upon them. Some of them fell down, some cried on the way down, and the others returned fire. He had to bail from his room, Adre would be fine as there was a massive buffer between her and the outside wall. 

Someone in the chaos and the moaning walls, he could hear the footsteps coming up to his perforated door and front windows. He sprayed another magazine worth of bullets to and fro, the windows shattered and the door splintered. No way of knowing if he hit anything, but he knew he bought himself more time, even if an even  _ greater  _ volume of bullets returned the favor! These cowards would be all for taking potshots at him, but nobody wanted to try going inside to be blown away… at least not until their  _ backup  _ came. When Byran heard even  _ more  _ vehicles pulling up to his house, his plan and outlook changed dramatically.

“You gotta be fucking  _ kidding  _ me! Do I got the fucking  _ mafia  _ on me?! FUCK!” 

The panic was insurmountable, all Byran could think of doing was burning through his second to last magazine for the ‘fast gun’ at the door. Putting the absolute last one inside the weapon forced him to realize that he hadn’t the ammunition to stay upstairs and fend them off, so a new plan had to come to fruition and  **_FAST._ **

“Where are the fucking COPS?! You goddamned ASSHOLES!”

OK! He thought of a plan, it wasn’t a GREAT plan or anywhere near GOOD, but it was  _ something!  _ He threw himself back to his room and reopened the closet, Adre made a startled noise that could’ve been a scream if he hadn’t cut her off.

“ _ SHSHHS-  _ no time, just-.”

Byran picked up the child and hoisted her in a way he could still carry his weapon. With the sound of windows being breached and doors being banged on, there was no need to be subtle. 

“Keep your ears covered sweetie! Close your eyes too! This’ll all be over in a minute I just NEED you to do these things NOW!” 

No time to check if she got it, he ran out onto the second floor and fired his weapon erratically just for the sound: going down the stairs would take too long and risk Adre’s life so Byran broke through the railing and jumped from the second story onto the hard and unforgiving floor. The sound that the impact made, the sound that  _ HE  _ made… it  **_HURT,_ ** but miraculously he stuck the landing. Byran spun around and saw the figures entering his kitchen through the busted sliding door. He would wound one of them and kill the other… he couldn’t aim higher than his chest: and hit them below the belt. Some unlucky dirtbag took the bullet to their femoral artery and bled out on the kitchen floor. 

There were only more coming, the front door was kicked open, glass was displaced as more goons entered through all the broken windows. Byran heard the *CLICK* from the MAC-10 and knew it was spent, he dropped it and went to try his so called ‘plan’... It wasn’t his plan to begin with though…

With his enemies closing in around him, Byran was going to follow his father’s final orders after fifteen years. He took Adre down into the basement, he did not stay behind this time.  _ This  _ time he was going to save himself too… Adre’s mother would’ve wanted it this way. He was going to wait for them all to congregate down the basement stairs, and then he would burst from the egress doors and escape with his kid. It was going to be  _ FINE…  _

When he made that left off of the bottom step, the doors should’ve been in sight… But a group of goons wielding assault rifles blocked the way, then the ones laying in wait and hiding behind him flicked the lights on and pointed shotguns at his back. 

“You’re not gettin away  _ this  _ time Rantz!-”

**N̷̛̪͖̻̤̺̰̲̭͔͈͋̅̉̈́̎͛̈́͐͛̾̌͝͝͝ͅͅO̸̳̼̪̘͊͆̑̽̏̔͒͘̕͝Ơ̸̯̙̦̥̅̈́̈̂̆͌̓̃̔͂̚ͅ ̶̢̺̮͙̆̇̀́͗͐̚͝I̶̡͙̥̳͈̳̩͈͓̪̪̹̗͐͒͛T̸̪̲̬̜̟͐̒͘͘͜͠ ̴̩̓͂̅C̴̡̮̰̹̩̬̰̓̐̀̏̊̚A̴̧̢̳͕̹̥͍͓̣͎̲̟Ǹ̸̡̘͔̤͖͖̖͊̄͌̐'̸̨̤͖͍̬̝̳̙̣͉͕͖̱͎̏͂͆͌͗̌̽̃̏̚T̷̨̝̺͈̟͉͔͙͇͈̲̰̣́͂ͅ ̶̨̹̭̗̲͕͖̄̈́̆̊͒̅̌̈́̓̔̑̆͝ͅÉ̸̻̗̣̠̲̰̘͔̼̩̰̍̍N̷̨͚͚̑̄̇̈́̊̓̏̑̎̈́̐͜͠D̵̢̡̛͔͉̫͕̯͈͕͎̈̒̓͊̏͛̈́̑̎͑͌̂̓ ̵̡͔͕̯̓Ĺ̴̗͕̗̮̩̔͗͒̏͂̅͝Î̵͕͓̝̂̓̉͒̂̓̌̔̚͝Ķ̵̛͎͎̟͚̜͈̼͈͖̽̈́͊̚͜È̵̹̲̼̥͉͙͕̍̎̊͐̈́̏̅̚͝ ̶͍̣̭̗̟̩̊̔̒̆̇̎̓̅̅̒̒̉͝T̶̛̬͉̺̟̺̳̒̅̏͛H̵̨͖̯̣̟͎̳̳̼̗̺̄ͅḬ̴̙̘̳͖̖̻̒̑̿̃̾̌͌Ş̵̲̻̊̑̂͊̍̆̅̅̕̕͜͜**

  
  


“You're done, motherfucker!”

“You’re finished, you son of a fucking bitch!”

They were all around Brainz, he had no more moves, no more tricks, no more ‘choice’, they were going to kill him… And Toriel would grow to realize,  _ that’s  _ why he came. That’s why he jumped, that’s why he wanted to kill himself… it was the only option, the only thing that hadn’t been taken away from him.

**A n d s h e t o o k i t i n s t e a d . . .**

Everything from that night flashed before Toriel, it was attracted by all the hopelessness. All the fear and despair, the inexplicable pain running through her mind… this was  _ ‘it’.  _ She was stricken with terror the moment she saw Adre end up in Byran’s care but Toriel just didn’t know that she was afraid of  _ this  _ moment. As she watched Byran come to terms with all the weapons pointed at him. 

“Drop your weapons, Byran.”

He refused. 

“C’mon now, make it  _ easy  _ on yourself, in fact: make it  _ easy  _ for your cute little girl too! We came all this way just for  _ you,  _ she don’t gotta suffer too.” 

Nobody could describe the twitchy mess of looks on Byran’s face, even less could comprehend what was going through his head. The one certainty was that there was no way in hell he was going to let go of his child… she whispered into his ear, still cupping her ears and keeping her eyes tightly shut.

“Is it over yet?”

…

“It will be, sweetie don’t worry. I’m gonna take care of you, I love you so much. I love you. So.. so much,  **it’ll all be** **_alright…”_ **

In that moment, his world was only his niece and the only thing he could do for her now. He did everything to defy the world… and raised his gun just up to her little head. 

**_*BLAM!*_ **

It was the loudest bullet casing he had ever heard hit the concrete floor… her body went limp… just like he had hoped… Byran wouldn’t put her down though… he promised he wouldn’t. There would be no need to think of what he had just done… he moved the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger.

_ *CLICK!*  _

He wanted to escape with her… but that way was closed for him… something else had been opened just for him now. They didn’t shoot him, they did something different, knowing that he had run out of ammo.

Byran held onto his niece's body as long as he could as he was ganged up on and beaten savagely into the concrete floor. He tried so hard to keep her but eventually the punches and kicks prevented his body from holding on anymore. Only when he couldn’t feel her anymore, or anything beyond his torso did he cry out… but it was muffled as they kicked his teeth in and broke every one of his fingers with the stock of their weapons. They beat him for minutes, only being stopped when his grip on life was nothing but a frayed string. The last thing that could be perceived before the memory failed was a deep voice, the same voice that ran his nightmares for years to come. 

“Y’know, this didn’t have to be personal. Your partner wanted this to be quick and painless for ya… but you had to go and make it difficult for everyone… no wonder why he wants you gone.”

And then he felt the cold maw of a gun barrel touching his forehead.

Toriel heard the  _ *POP!*  _


	17. 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was the beauty in my eye,  
> it has no more reason to see now.

The lights had gone out and there was nothing left to see, the show was over. Toriel was left alone in the dark to weep for the both of them. She wallowed for a long time, unable to keep herself from the deepest kind of misery. This was what Not-Toriel tried to keep her from, the deepest and darkest piece of Brainz: the only place that inflicted more pain than it. She knew this too, Toriel knew this: because there was no worse kind of pain than a parent losing their children. It could never be out done, and it could never go away… so she cried for two lifetimes of broken hearts and rent souls. What was there left to do? 

**_get revenge…_ **

She heard the voice from nowhere. Toriel felt something through the utter cold, a twinge that made her lurch to her feet. 

**_he took your child…_ **

**_he took your house…_ **

It burned going down, it made every inch of her want to  _ move.  _ A lifeless ragdoll being violently kicked into animation.

**_he took it ALL…_ **

**_and you’re just going to let him get away with that?_ **

The burning sensation became  _ searing.  _ It pooled into her core and stretched to the ends of her being. In a moment, this occurrence granted her all of the sensations attributed to living in the real world… only to make her feel them going numb. Her definitions and limits of herself were excruciatingly pried away by white hot strings. This feeling was horrible, it was indescribable… but it wasn’t  _ unfamiliar.  _ Toriel had felt this very same way before, when she accidentally took this soul into herself. All of the undefined pain, the misery, the  _ hatred…  _ so much hatred focused into one thing, she had spoken its name even in her ungovernable state. 

**_pailurn…_ **

But what she could feel most of all, all derived from everything furious and vile: the  **_power,_ ** not at her own discretion. The force that prevented her from laying still, no matter how much she wanted to sit there and  _ fall down:  _ her body wouldn’t LET her. It was impossible,  **because she was too DETERMINED to die…**

If this is how she felt now, in Byran memory: then that only meant one thing.

In a flash of RED, everything was back: resurrected as crude shapes and surreal forms all joined together by a wall of even redder flames. The heat was more intense than anything Toriel felt. The world  _ refused  _ to die, and with it: the body in the center of the room.

A battered arm slowly rose into the smoke and slapped down onto the floor ahead of Byran. Then the second one dragged his body to catch up with the first. He was supposed to be dead… but the flames wouldn’t let him. One arm after the other was stoked by the fire, his movements were choppy and sluggish as he slipped in and out of consciousness. Everytime he stopped, he and Toriel would feel the same  **_JOLT_ ** tear through them. It was like LIFE itself was being  _ stabbed  _ into them, hitting them with a convulsion.

He  **_CRAWLED_ ** up the steps, his hands were destroyed and couldn’t grab anything: Byran would inch and fight to get up every cliff, the fires were so hot that they started melting their own creation behind him. The same fury that wanted him to leave was destroying everything given to him, it only caused him to move  _ faster.  _ The lapses in consciousness became faster, but his momentum did too. The pain was indescribable, but he couldn’t feel it: he wasn’t awake enough for it to find him. This toxic will was what moved him, it dictated his every action. 

_ There…  _ could he hear them? The shrill screams coming from the end of the tunnel? They waited for him, outside of where the fires could reach: a portal opened through all the smoke: filled with blue light. The flames had just about consumed everything when he reached into the surface with every bit of menacing will he had gained. The blue light burst and  _ filled  _ the entire world, the fires were pushed back. The next thing Toriel knew, they were outside on the front lawn, basking in the intense glow and heat of the flames that had swallowed the house whole. The billowing smoke became invisible as it blended into the night sky. 

The fire wasn’t just inside of his head, it was real. Byran was smoldering and leaving a trail of his own smeared blood as he crawled his last meter and went limp for the last time. The last thing Toriel saw before this temporary world faded away, were the flashing lights coming straight for him. 

Everything following was a blur. Interludes of strange sounds, voices, and snippets of unknown places. The wail of sirens became muffled, eventually losing to a new rhythm of beeping tones while all that could be seen was a plain white ceiling. 

Sometimes, more often than not: humans wearing blue (A different kind of blue, not the police: these ones had blue hats and masks) would stare right down at Byran. The sensation of terrible pain was always present now, but it always worsened when the blue people appeared. Aunt Loisa was even there  _ too.  _ She was so upset about something, everytime she could be heard she was crying. During the periods of darkness and cold, voices would chime in from nowhere.

“ **There is no optimistic way to put this, Ma’am. We were able to remove the bullet and stop the hemorrhaging, but we cannot overlook the extensive damage to his cerebrum…”**

**“- frontal lobe, temporal lobe, damage to the occipital lobe- in the back of his head, is likely. The truth is, his odds of waking up are less than not. And even if he** **_does_ ** **I cannot assure you he will be able function normally** **_-”_ **

  
  


**“-** **_behavior,_ ** **the thought process, even** **_speaking,_ ** **can be permanently altered. It’s likely he will live with impairments for the rest of his life… There** **_are_ ** **therapies though that can help him overcome these- but for now: hindsight is the key. He has to wake up before we can discern the next course of action.”**

There was a whole lot of nothing after that. A period of laying and waiting that lasted an eternity, where the only thing that let you know you still existed was the pain you were in and the constant  _ blips  _ that drilled into your ear. That was for Byran. Toriel got to experience a slew of nightmares and terrors involving monsters and deceased children. With no way out, Byran’s thoughts festered and fermented into horrible creatures that hated. Toriel would see a shapeless featureless blob of RED the most… 

One day, Byran spoke. It would be heard inside of his head as his ability to speak was obstructed by the weakness and all the tubes going down his throat.

“My head… it hurts.” 

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes were pictures of the hole in his own head: X-rays posted to a board on the wall: everything else was obstructed by his nose. He was alone in his soulless hospital room, but that wouldn’t last for long as his struggles to remove the apparatuses from himself attracted nurses and doctors. 

When Byran was permitted to breathe on his own again, he was subjected to a bunch of questions: Real simple ones such as asking if he knew his own name, what year it was, if he could move his arms and legs… eventually and tediously making him prove the fact one by one. Byran would pass this examination with flying colors even when he was so weak and his speech was difficult and unfun. When the doctors were done with the rudimentary procession, it became his turn to ask  _ them _ questions. 

“Is that  _ me?  _ On the wall?...”

Again, it was an Xray of his brain, or at least most of it. The part where his cranium should’ve covered the damaged part came up as a white rigid shape. The doctors would explain to him that they had to give him a metal implant to make his skull whole again. It explained the deep and throbbing pain as well as the hideous scars and lessened hair on his head. They also brought to his attention, the tight bandages keeping his fingers curled up. The surgery which was almost as extensive as the procedure on his brain, tried to repair his crushed fingers but none of them healed correctly. They were crooked, all 10 of them, trying to move them just hurt even more. The thing that got to him the most, was the more pressing question.

“I. I can’t see- out of my left eye, I  _ can’t see.”  _

The doctors didn’t have an answer for him, they seemed just as surprised as he was, no amount of waving their hands or shining lights into the eye would change it… Byran went blind in his left eye. Much to Toriel’s confusion, while the eye looked ‘dead’ and pale… it was still  _ green.  _

They told Byran many things, diagnoses, prognoses, all things about how much more difficult existing could become for him… but above all: the doctors told Byran how ‘lucky’ he was to be alive… it made him laugh, miserably just like the last time someone told him that. He laughed harder than he should’ve, it just set off a very painful coughing fit. The fact that he was sitting here, repeating history again: with the recollection of the night seeping back into him. Byran didn’t scream, he didn’t wail, he showed no signs of being in anguish… he just just laughed because it was funny as hell. What he said next (In addition to the spontaneous and painful laughter) earned him a stay in the psych ward under constant supervision on ‘Suicide Watch’

“I’m only here because I couldn’t kill myself.” 

* * *

  
  


Byran Rantz spent four long months in the hospital, he was only awake for the last one and wished he wasn’t. Between not being allowed to leave and the therapies he was forced to do: it was back to being in prison for him. The police visited multiple times to ask him  _ real  _ questions about what happened. Everything he told them was a lie, his house had burned to the ground with everything inside of it so they only had Byran’s yellow testimony, his 911 call and the word from his neighbors who heard gunshots.  _ Of course  _ they didn’t believe him, why would they? They never did. But they had no evidence and all their incentive faded away ten years ago. In the end, the story was that Byran had brought back his kid who ran away: just to come home a robbery gone very wrong.

When this was all they could pick with their vulture beaks, they left him. They didn’t come to try and  _ help  _ him, no. They wanted to convict whatever was left. He may have been able to fend off the dangerous blues… but he knew he wouldn’t be able to do the same for  _ her.  _

Aunt Loisa… spent all of  _ five  _ minutes feeling sorry for him on her first visit. The rest were spent  _ blaming  _ him for everything that happened. That’s how Byran saw it at least.  _ Of course  _ she knew that something like this would happen, just like she  _ knew  _ all along what Byran was up to. How this entire visit was now about  _ her  _ and how he  _ lied  _ to her and broke her heart and  _ all  _ **sorts** of whines and bitching about it as if Byran wasn’t already under enough stress. Everything Toriel would see; every interaction was put through a red filter where only negativity and resentment came through. That was how Byran saw his dear aunt now, it was how he saw the  _ world…  _ not even Loisa could be an exception. He wouldn’t tell her anything either, because Byran genuinely believed now that she would use it against him. This all happened because he went back on his own policy, because he didn’t listen to Chara on theirs:  **Trust NO one.**

Toriel only wondered what became of Chara… Byran would too, looking at them with a degree of resentment and even  _ jealousy _ that they ‘lucked out’ and “weaseled” away. If they hadn’t made a scene and made him go out like that, maybe he would’ve been  _ prepared.  _

Byran was released from the hospital on December 3rd 1994, Aunt Loisa was not informed of this, Byran “knew” how she worked, how she saw him: one big pity and a strain on her time and resources. All he had to do was look at the medical bill which was high enough to give you a heart attack and send you back so it could become even bigger. She would feel that she had to take that upon herself and hate him for it  _ too…  _ It wasn’t happening, he was done relying on others, no more help: no more dragging them down with him. 

When Byran stepped out into the cold, he had nothing but a set of clothes donated to him from goodwill and his cellphone which survived with him. (He was able to bum a full charge off of a nurses idle charger). Other than that, he had nothing… He’d lost everything. 

“I don’t need her… I don’t need  _ anyone.”  _

What he  _ did  _ retain though, was something he gained only at death’s door when he pulled himself out of his own burning house with a hole in his head. The thing that kept him alive, and warded off his suicidal thoughts… by all means they were going to come to fruition… but not  _ yet.  _ He had work to do, and he had to get there first.

It took a long time, him standing out in the cold with his thumb out: he was able to hitchhike a ride even though he couldn’t feel his thumb. It wasn’t from frostbite, he just had no feeling in one of his thumbs. When someone finally pulled over, Byran made the effort to conceal his deformities: he felt like some kind of monster and believed people would see him as one if they got a look at his creepy eye or his misshapen fingers. The driver wasn’t going directly where he wanted, but it was mostly in the right direction which meant an hours drive from the hospital over god knows how many walking in the cold and (it had just started to) snow. The driver also wasn’t up for small talk which was nice, they played their music and kept to the road, it let Byran sit with his thoughts. 

Chara… it wasn’t their fault at all… but what would have resulted if Byran listened to them? The hitmen were already on their way when this argument happened, all that would’ve resulted is Chara would have died with… Adre. 

He’d let himself get sucked into the despair again, so much that the driver had to shake him back to reality when it was his time to depart. They asked him if he was alright too, Byran just nodded and thanked them for the ride. He watched as the red eyes in the back of the car shrank into the distance, afterwards he had a good amount of walking to do before he reached his first destination. 

The winter air felt especially cruel on his more exposed cranium, it felt cruel on everything. He was given this reminder on just how cruel the world was: one that would last and hit him in the most primal places. If his mental pain wasn’t enough, his own body hated him now. The metal in his head, it  _ itched,  _ it  **_hurt_ ** _ , _ his fingers felt like they were still broken. The hospital didn’t feel like fixing this… so they just prescribed him a whole new kind of pill to get addicted to. ‘Vicodin’ or ( **_Hydrocodone)_ ** as the name in parentheses. Just another con to get them more  _ money  _ he didn’t have anymore. It didn’t change the fact though that they  _ worked _ and he wanted to get more of them… he’d find a way, he  _ had  _ to. 

The sun was halfway to bed when Byran turned onto a familiar street. The tire marks were still present on the asphalt. It wouldn’t be longer at all until he made it:

**Home.**

What was left of it at least… 

Byran’s life lay in front of him. A blackened mess of charred debris and disintegrating walls all contained within a ring of yellow police tape that had never been taken down. You couldn’t even tell all the work he did to bring it back to normal, it had all been destroyed in one night. Nobody was going to fix it, last of all, him. He stepped inside the felled property and sat down right where his kitchen used to be. 

This would be the last time Byran cried in his life, surrounded by his loss. He could never see her again, hear her cute voice or see that beautiful face. He failed Rosemary too… the one thing she asked him to do, even if she didn’t deserve it from him… and he directly failed it. So he sat there and cried, Toriel would be right with him too…

The strange thing was, when Byran was still in the hospital: the police who tried to incriminate him with all their questions. They never asked him about Adre, not about finding her remains or even mentioning her as if she  _ existed.  _ He didn’t speak a word either, just keeping the bewilderment and heartache inside. Her body was never found, and just like that she was forgotten by everyone except him and Loisa. If he saw just a smidgen of pink, Byran would suffer a complete mental collapse… but he still looked for her, going so far as to try and unlock his way to the basement to take a look. It was no use. He killed his own niece and he couldn’t even  _ bury  _ her respectfully, what kind of uncle was he? He wasn’t anymore, he never should have been. 

Byran felt like the worst kind of person in the world, a part of him believed it too. He would wipe his face as a chill sapped some of his body heat, and sit himself right back on the black tiled floor. As he sat huddled into himself, something caught his eye as he was situated directly in front of his fridge’s carcass. There was something yellowish sitting underneath the large thing, barely touched by fire it seemed as he could see the floor under the fridge wasn’t as black as the floor out in the open. He would reach under and pull out a piece of slightly singed construction paper. 

It was the picture of Him and Adre… it slipped under the fridge and survived the fire, becoming the only memento of her he still had. 

[I'll remember you.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PPJZlbMkoI)

He had to stop holding the paper so close to himself, it started to become damp from all the drops hitting it. He spoke directly to the smiling girl on the paper, his voice could barely hold together from the sobs.

“I’m so _sorry,_ sweetie… I’m _so. so_ sorry… my little _girl._ This is all my fault- it is. It **_is…”_**

Byran curled up on the floor and stared into the happier time. He wanted to be there, holding her hand again… but he was stuck here, left behind by his family again. And so here he lay, shivering and crying until he tired himself out and passed out.

**Adreemia Rantz**

**??-??-1989| 7-23-1994**

**(Forever in my heart, Sweetie)**


	18. 17

Byran had a nightmare… a whirlwind of ridicule and hateful faces. They swarmed him, did a fade on him: there was no escaping them. They told him the worst kinds of things about himself, exploiting his failures and making spectacles out of them for him to relive. They’d also demanded to know why he did these things, no answer would ever quell them. The cruellest of voices screaming into his soul… it was  _ his  _ voice that attacked him.

“ _ MURDERER! YOU KILLED HER!”  _

It was her voice that begged him to stop.

“ _ No!  _ Uncle Brainz! PLEASE!” 

He found himself back in his basement, seeing her face everywhere he looked. Watching her beg for his help, reaching out for a hand that would never embrace her as she was dragged away screaming into the dark. Byran tried to chase after her, but his legs were balloons made of lead, he was too slow. He followed her cries through a twisted recreation of his home with blood seeping out the walls, painting them red. Her Bedroom door awaited him at the end of the corridor, chains strutted across, binding the door closed. He could hear her crying on the other side… but nothing he did could open the door, he couldn’t save her no matter how hard he tried. A gunshot on the other side would silence the screaming and end his attempts. Byran slid down against the door and basked in the silence, blood soaked into his hands; never to be washed off. He covered his eyes, smearing the red onto his face. 

Then came the laughter, sick laughter twisted with innuendo. He had to look, he had to see the culprit standing before him with that evil grin: Byran had to look into his own eyes, the killer was smiling right back at him. He wasn’t going to let that bastard get away with this, Byran clenched his fist and drew his gun. His monster did the same but it wasn’t fast enough, he put every round he had into his own self… he could feel his insides being ripped apart. They both fell, they both laid into their shame. Just as his eyes slowly closed and the crushing ruin enveloped him, Byran could see one more person just off in the distance… watching the whole thing unfold. 

**Rhattener.**

He never saw it coming, and now it was too late… except: there came something  _ else. _ This red fuzzy  _ blob _ that erased all the darkness it touched… it came for Byran and it whispered something to him.

**_don’t you want you to make this all right?_ **

**_make him pay for what he’s done?_ **

**_she doesn’t have to die in vain…_ **

**_you can A V E N G E her…_ **

Byran struggled to answer it, its presence kept him from sinking any further, he could feel it stinging him.

“What.  _ Are.  _ You…?”

A sense of ‘joy’ could be felt from the red mass, its voice sounded oddly familiar.

**_i just want to help…_ **

He reached out and touched the thing: it was like a bolt of lightning came through and shattered everything. Byran’s wounds closed up, and both of his eyes turned bright red. He leapt to his feet in an instant and made one impulsive glance to the man watching him… before sprinting for him with his claws open and itching to rip him to pieces. That’s what would make this all better, that’s why he bothered living. 

* * *

Byran had a nightmare… that he never woke from. His eyes were just open now. He had some words with his late niece.

“Mark my words. I’m  _ going  _ to find him, even if I have to go through everybody he knows. I’ll find him, and I’m gonna  **_kill him._ ** ” __

__

At first he didn’t sound all too happy to say so, like he had no other choice… but then he started to smile.

“I’m gonna kill him… I’m gonna kill those assholes who  _ attacked  _ us. I’m gonna kill them  **_all!”_ **

He started giggling, quickly turning into maniacal laughter. He was hyperventilating, Byran was so  _ giddy  _ about what he wanted to do.

“They’re gonna be  _ falling  _ left and right, begging for their lives... it’s gonna be  _ SO  _ **_GOOD!”_ **

It was the funniest thing in the world, his deranged laughter showed the point of no return. There was no saving him now… he was just 23 years old when the rest of his life became a scheme for vengeance. 

The memory faded out as he put a  _ big  _ grin on his face and got up to get to work on it… good spot to end, Toriel couldn’t watch anymore. She didn’t  _ want  _ to watch anymore, there was nothing else to  _ discover…  _ she knew what happened to  _ Chara.  _ But really wondered now why they  _ never  _ brought this up with her, not a  _ single word  _ about an ‘Uncle Brainz’ or a ‘Byran Rantz’ And  _ especially  _ nothing about  **_Pailurn._ ** Obviously despite Byran’s ‘new’ promises, he had not achieved his revenge… his  _ justifiable  _ revenge?

She didn’t even know what to think anymore, how terrible that the idea of killing someone felt morally gray now. Maybe she was just a little sore from what Pailurn did to her twenty years later. So  _ anyway…  _ there was  _ one  _ more thing to find out, one last thing. 

What did Byran do that brought him  **_H E R E ?_ **

* * *

  
  
  


[Lost Carol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTx4dQXN400)

_ ‘ _ **_This_ ** _ place…’ _

The first place Toriel entered, the  _ jail.  _ All the dark cells confined by the cold bars affixed to unforgiving concrete walls. Unlike the first time, she could hear no sobbing, no sounds of a grieving child to follow. Instead… the sound of a heavy door creaking open, and the sounds of chains rattling. She immediately feared what would be coming, but Not-Toriel wouldn’t meet her again. It was instead: a large group of humans stamping down the hall. Some of them were wearing suits and carrying large folders underneath their arms, and the others… There were police officers escorting Byran who was wearing an all orange uniform with his hands and legs bound together by chains.

In reality, the corridor wasn’t even that long. It just  _ felt  _ like it was. Step by step he was marched into a massive room. It was full of people who sat on either side of an aisle in the center. The moment the doors opened and Byran entered, the crowd became unruly. So many people standing up and shouting obscenities overlapping each other, they were  _ all  _ directed at Byran who just kept shuffling. One person, a young woman sitting right beside the aisle: reached up and slapped him in his face. The officers had to restrain her before continuing the march… she was screaming and had tears streaming down her face. 

He was eventually sat down at a desk in the front of this grand room, before an even larger one that faced him. The officers never left his side. What transpired next was foggy, it went on for a very long time… that much was made aware. The room quieted down some… people walked up and down the aisle and spoke at the big desk, there was a lot of talking between them… Byran would never speak. He just sat with his head down until one moment where Toriel could hear the words being spoken to him. Some cold speech listing things she only vaguely understood. 

“-In carefully weighing the aggravating factors established by the state against the mitigating factors established by the defense. This court decides without a shadow of a doubt that the mitigating factors are incomparable to all proven aggravating factors. Byran Andrew Rantz, this court finds you guilty on all counts and chooses to impose the death sentence. It is ordered that you will be taken by the sheriff to North Gruney Penitentiary and be kept in close and secure confinement until the specific date of your execution is set. You are hereby notified that the judgment of conviction and sentence to death are subjected to review. You are additionally notified that you have the right to the aid of counsel and filing for your appeal. You may file your appeal through your lawyer within 30 days and if you cannot afford a lawyer, a lawyer will be provided for you-” 

The room went  _ wild.  _ There was cheering, even  _ clapping  _ as Byran was taken away by his guards. All the noise turned into ringing, and the way he was breathing: he was  _ afraid…  _

They were going to  _ kill  _ him.

‘This was some kind of  _ trial!’ _

Toriel thought. 

Byran was put on trial and now they were going to kill him, how could Toriel have  _ forgotten _ the experience with the chair? He was wearing the exact same jumpsuit and everything.  _ This  _ was something she had to see even though she couldn’t express how much she didn’t  _ want  _ to see him  **_die_ ** again. But how could he have been  **_put down_ ** if Brainz fell underground twenty years later? It was the same question  _ again. _

She  _ had  _ to watch, Toriel couldn’t look away. Watching him be corralled like an animal to slaughter, ultimately leading up to his…  **cell.** Another incarceration, another confinement in a smaller and less friendly room. That was it for a long time, nothing happened. Toriel waited… and  _ waited…  _ nothing. Nobody came to talk to him, brought him to a room for questions, Aunt Loisa never came to visit. Byran never moved, he just lay there,  _ rotting.  _ Was he even  _ alive  _ anymore? He  _ had _ to be, but he looked like he was deteriorating with passing time; he became skinnier and chalky pale, his hair grew unconditioned and ungroomed both on his head and his face. He grew closer and closer to the mess that Toriel experienced death with, and at that point, he was almost a dead ringer for  _ Brainz.  _

What felt like an  _ eternity  _ of nothing for her was closer to an  _ actual  _ eternity for  _ him.  _ Toriel would never stop feeling the mix of unconditioned sympathy and terrible empathy for him… but she was starting to exhaust them. The newest draw was when the ‘day’ came where they opened the cell and prepared him for his death. All that messy and unkempt hair was cut off with a razor, the chains were fastened to him and he was off with his procession. On the way down the large hall, Byran showed just the smallest sign of curiosity at a digital watch one of his jailers wore. 

**5/23/2004**

**5:42 PM**

**> SUN<**

How long had he  _ been  _ here? When did he enter? How much of his life was spent behind bars?

It didn’t matter in the end… he was on his way to his demise. Same death march, same room, and to a degree: the same jeering and hateful crowd come to watch him die. They walked him in, and strapped Byran to the killing chair and all the peripherals it came with. Toriel got one last look at his face before the hood came down, devoid of emotion… even if he was sweating bullets and trembling in the seat. He was asked for his final words right before his face was covered, this time Toriel could hear him muttering something between his heavy breaths. 

“I waited long enough,  _ get on _ with it already…”

* * *

  
  
  


Brainz shouted at the top of his perforated lungs when he saw his death.

_ “BRING IT!!”  _

* * *

  
  


The clock struck six, and even though Toriel braced for what she knew would come; she still couldn’t be ready for it. The pain ripped through her insides like before, locking her movements up too. She could hear Byran’s sustained and strained groaning as he thrashed and struggled against the lightning they were killing him with. She could feel everything going dark, his life depleting rapidly, but no… she had to stay lucid, she had to stay awake. She couldn’t hold it though… Byran’s guttural noises slammed to an abrupt halt: like his body gave up fighting and plummeted his life into death. The shock caused Toriel to fall down too. 

Byran was dead. 

  
  


**0̵̣̱̭͖̐͒̿̽̃͒̐́0̶͖͍͈͇͎̩͍̫́̎̄̋1̷̢̬̈͋͌͌͗̈́͋̋͘͠**

* * *

Toriel lurched up, freed from the constricting malice. She woke herself up as fast as she could, already she was burdened with the thought that she missed the one explanation for this occurrence. She came to, looking at the door that kept Byran captive. She was back to being alone in the construct of his memories… of course.

**No actually… she** **_wasn’t,_ ** because  _ Byran  _ was there too, huddled in the cot within his cell on death row. What kind of trauma and trickery was  _ this?  _ She had to check and- he was still  _ alive. _ The memory had been  _ rewound-  _ nothing was different, not a single detail: she had been brought back to the long anticipation before his execution. His hair was back but receded to its normal length.

‘But…  _ why?’ _

To be fair, Toriel could’ve asked that for just about everything bad that happened, but in this case she was more confused than anything, even more than heartbroken after watching him die. She had  _ all  _ that waiting again to ponder what was going on… It was all the  _ same.  _ The only difference here was that the wait seemed even more insufferable than the first time. Eventually again, they opened the door: shaved Byran and took him away. All the spectators still hated him, and he told his murderers the same thing before the clock struck six and Toriel got to experience the horrible sensation  _ again.  _ It  _ also  _ felt longer and somewhat more excruciating. Byran drooped his head and she fell down too.

**Dead.**

**0̸̛̘̹͉̗̩̈́̿̐̊̆̈͠0̵̺̳̥̻͔̝̇2̵̡̰̙̲̝̱̳̩̮́͌̑̂͛͌̎̄̚͜**

* * *

It happened  _ again,  _ what was going  _ on??  _ Was there something she was supposed to  _ see?  _ Something she had to  _ do?  _ She made sure to scrutinize everything and anything occurring. She even tried to do this while dying with him.

**0̷̨̅0̶͍̗͎̍ͅ3̴̳̬͉̦̣̻̺̯̉̆͗͛̑̔͝**

* * *

  
  
  


Toriel started to despair, back to the cell: back to waiting. She was trapped with Byran, stuck to wait for the chair and the immense pain it brought. She tried looking for a way to leave but only made the experience at the end more terrifying.

**0̶͔̫̈́̇̈́͂̕0̴̖̰̌̑̓4̶̺̞͓̖͖̝͓̝̀̐̆͒̓̈́͒͝͠**

* * *

  
  


She couldn’t leave… there was no way out. Even when the door opened and she ran the opposite direction, there was nowhere to go. She was bound by Byran’s recollection and trying to get away was impossible. She would be dragged into that room and forced to withstand the electric chair. 

**0̷͉̱̫̣̻̞̬̭̘͊̈́͂̐͒̾̒0̸̘͕͙͛́̋͋̎7̵̡̳̩̩̼̎̽͐͑̉̀͗**

* * *

Byran died again, it took him long enough.

  
  


**0̸̡̱̯̟̜͔̠͓̇͐̅͊̆̉ͅ1̵̬̪̱̣͔̤̳͇̈́̑̚3̵͈̰̩͈̩̦̱͒́̆́͆͗͆̕͠͝**

* * *

Byran died again, it felt like it took another minute for the pain to  _ stop. _

  
  


**0̶̦̘̪̟̜̹̥̹̑̊͌̿̓͛̚͝4̷̪̺̫̎̇̽́͛2̵͙͉͈̱͇̮̻̫̃̄̓̊**

* * *

Byran died  _ again…  _ it  _ definitely  _ took them longer to kill him. It didn’t  **_HURT_ ** this much last time! 

  
  
  


**0̷̖̣͕̜͍͈̿̉̏͐͒͛͘6̷̡͓̘̬͕̝̫͊̅͝6̷̘̖͇̙̈́**

* * *

There  _ was _ a change to these. It was taking longer and longer for the electric chair to kill him, just when Toriel  _ could’ve  _ gone numb to the sensation, it worsened and lasted  _ longer!  _ But  **_WHY?!_ ** Why was this happening! Why was it resetting?! Why was this going on,  _ why  _ was it in his memories? Was this  _ real?  _ Why was it occurring? Why,  _ why,  _ **_WHY??_ **

  
  


**1̵͓͇̬̊͜1̷̢̦͍̲̪̠̝̏̒̓͐͑͊̑̉̚͝2̷͖̹͕̈́͑͝**

* * *

It took twice as long now… the smell of burnt hair became sickeningly potent. Byran’s grunts and groans were much more audible now, he was calling out in pain… when he died now, it was like a sweet  _ release.  _ The same kind of sob Brainz made when he finally fell. 

**2̴͕̮̺͕̙̝͔͂̎͋̍͋̏͝͝1̶̼͇̮͖̠͓̓̈́7̵̠̪͕̟̌͐̈́͛**

* * *

No hope, no way out. Toriel wished solely that Byran would just  _ die  _ and not come back. It was a wish for  _ mercy,  _ they were being tortured in ways that couldn’t be stopped. This… it was hell, not an exaggeration of the term. It was literal hell.  _ Eternal suffering.  _

‘This is my  _ punishment.’ _

_ ‘It never ceases…’ _

Her sanity…

Sanity? 

What was that?    
  


**2̴̛̘̰͛̇̂̈́̀̿̓7̴̡͉͖̀̀̚̕1̴͎̲̣̳̬͖̮̦̋̂̎̆̌͜**

* * *

It was becoming different, something was  _ different  _ now. Byran was stirring more in his cell, he grew more restless too. Did he know? He had to have retained something… His left eye looked funny, Toriel never noticed how  _ yellow  _ it had become, probably from the lack of light or something. It wasn’t like this mattered… not when he would be dead soon…

Byran did not want to go this time, he fought with them… They had to force him to move, they had to call for reinforcements to get him into that chair. Toriel had never felt such a quick pang of hope that just shattered shortly after. The death was beyond excruciating, she could feel the burning even after the reset. It was like it was ingrained in her soul. 

  
  


**3̸̙̹̟̹͇̏̾͌̋̇̈́̒̚0̴̡̡̲̦͖̜͊̈́̐̆̅̈́̐͒̚͠2̷̛̣̣͎͔͙̭̳̟͇͙͌̐̽͋͋̏͒**

* * *

Toriel stopped rooting for him to win, there was no chance Byran could break free. Shame on her for thinking so. He was  _ changing  _ though… his left eye was now dark orange, what did it mean? Were all these deaths really happening then? Nothing made sense. 

  
  


**3̶̛̜̖̟̥͊̾3̷̡͉͕͖̟̗͊̂̽9̵̡̢͍̰̥̞͔̯̏̊̓͆̋̂͌͛́̚**

* * *

She screamed… not from the death, it took three times as long for the electricity to fry him. That’s not why she screamed, when Toriel was shunted back to the cell… There was somebody else there.

**“Why are you letting them do this to you?”**

It was Adre… slathered in RED, with a  _ big  _ hole in her forehead. She was just sitting there, playfully kicking her legs off the cot. Toriel didn’t know what to do, this child wasn’t actually there but who wasn’t she actually there for? She meant- who  _ was _ she there for? This was just a haunting by the demon in Byran… but was it here for  _ her _ or him? Who’s nightmare was it a part of when they shared the same one? Toriel just gibbered and backed into the farthest corner from the apparition. Adre didn’t notice her, the red eyed shell of a girl only cared for the shivering pile of person on the floor. 

**“Uncle Brainz, I need help. Won’t you help me?”**

He wouldn’t acknowledge her, she followed him asking for help up until the moment he died but Byran didn’t respond. It was like he couldn’t see her.

**3̸̣̼̳̮͋͌̋͂̏̆́͐͛̓͒̈́͑5̸̬̟̼̖̀̊̈́̏̆̇͗͌̎̂̌̄͆͝2̷̥͈̲̾̅͐̈́̽̎̂̋̅̚**

* * *

He started covering his ears and laying on his stomach to keep his eyes from looking at her. Everytime she spoke, Byran muttered.

“No.” 

**4̶̡̝̟̬̭̠̼̹̯̭̪̼̞̥͒͘ͅ0̷̨̢̛̛̠͈̫͈̪̤̖̭̓̎̅̏̇͆͗͜͝͝0̷̞̩̻̳̖̫̲͈͙̪͓̾̍̃̎̐ͅ**

* * *

**“Please Uncle Brainz, I need** **_help…”_ **

“No… you’re not real, you’re not her, she’s  _ dead. _ ”

**“... Don’t you love me anymore?”**

“... Of  _ course  _ I do, sweetie… I’m  _ sorry.” _

“ **Then why didn’t you avenge me? You** **_promised_ ** **after you shot me…”**

“I know I did, I know I did- but please, I-i tried, I really  _ did. _ I tried,  _ forgive  _ me.”

**“I can’t forgive you, not after what you did to me… do you think** **_Chara_ ** **would forgive you for what you did to them?”**

“ _ No,  _ I  _ know.  _ I tried to find them- what do you  _ want  _ from me? Tell me! Anything, I’ll do anything for you, sweetie.  _ please…”  _

**“You have to** **_live_ ** **first…”**

**5̷̨̫͓̳͙̗̗̼̝̬̍̇̃͐̓̈́̔̈͋̿5̵̡̬̮̩̩̘̼̥̤̗̗̼̱̓͊1̴̨̛̝̳̬̣̬͇͋͂͐́̀̒̅̊̊͆͛̇̕͜**

* * *

The waiting period was full of conversation between Byran and his dead niece. It had the same setup every time, she would remind him of his failure and make him fester in his own guilt before asking him to do something impossible. He fell for it every time. 

This time… was different. 

When they strapped him into the chair, Byran just started laughing. It wasn’t an evil laugh or something disrespectful… he just found this situation hilarious. It wasn’t even a surprise for Toriel… Byran’s sanity was basically gone at this point. Hers was somewhere else, she’d forgotten where and had basically gone into a catanotic state. The only thing that stimulated her at all was the chair, the regularly scheduled torture by electricity. Distancing herself from caring was the smart move, it didn’t really hurt anymore… but this one would. 

When they turned the juice on, it did little to stop his laughs. Byran strained himself just to push out the chuckles as the electricity was killing him slowly. The convulsions going through him only accentuated his laughter. Full minutes had to elapse before he would stop breathing, the executioners just looked at each other while the power was kept on. Byran kept moving and grunting as the pungent burning smell rose. It wouldn’t be much longer before the droop and the restart- Then came a  **_burning_ ** sensation, the first time Toriel ever experienced it: something  **_new._ ** It  _ immediately  _ took her off guard, she wasn’t used to this. Not only was it new, the  _ pain  _ from it: it was worse than  _ anything  _ she had ever felt. When she looked to see what was causing it…

There was a cloud dark gray smoke coming out of the twitching human, Byran was on fire. His head was engulfed by blue flames while yellow sparks shot out from him. The maddened laughter of his turned into agonized screaming. They wouldn’t stop the electricity, even as they  _ watched  _ the flames eating at his flesh and heard his more frantic screams. Toriel screamed as well, every convulsion he had, every violent jerk in his struggle was mirrored by her. She could feel the fire eating her alive, something she  _ really _ wasn’t familiar with. It quickly made this intense moment worse than every repeated death combined. To top it all off, the smell of burnt and  _ charring  _ flesh sickened everybody in the room. Even the persons who rooted for his death showed degrees of nausea. Finally... after half of his body was scorched, Byran’s yells stopped and he went still. The last thing Toriel experienced was an alarm ringing and people shouting… it all went black and she was back to the cell. 

* * *

‘No more- no more-  _ no more.  _ **No more.** ’

She collapsed into the floor, huddled in the same fetal position Byran once adopted. The deaths, they were  _ all  _ going to be like this now. It was never going to stop, Toriel couldn’t even remember what she was doing prior to this, she even started questioning if she had a life beyond this tormenting cycle. It wouldn’t be much longer until the door opened and she is dragged deeper into hell with him. 

Adre was here like she always was, she said something but Toriel wasn’t too keen on listening on right now. It was when she stopped talking, that something else ‘new’ happened. There was a loud  **_*BANG!*_ ** that reverberated off of the walls of the room, the whole world  _ “flickered”  _ with it, like a light during a storm. Toriel was more perceptive for a few seconds and then it happened  _ again.  _ When she looked up, she saw that Byran had stood up, approached the hard metal door… and started banging his head into it as hard as he could.

‘Oh my  _ god.’ _

It was just enough of a shocking sight to help her ignore the devastation to her psyche. Byran continued in a perfect rhythm, hitting the door and only showing a delay when he reeled back from the impact. The blood smears on the metal started to grow bigger and bigger as he damaged himself worse and worse. A large gash came across his face, the blood on the door became wet splatters. He was in a full trance, completely departed from any semblance of normal behavior. It wasn’t until Toriel heard Adre laughing and cheering Byran on that it came to her that he was trying to kill himself. 

“ **There you go! Don’t let** **_them_ ** **do it. Keep it up!”**

The flickering became full on lapses of existence, like the lights were being turned off for seconds at a time. This wasn’t nearly as excruciating as the chair, but the severe throbbing in her head still made this incredibly unpleasant… also tied with the fact Byran was committing suicide in front of her. 

Then the door opened… ultimately thwarting Adre’s plan. But the thing was, it wasn’t  _ time  _ for it to open. Toriel had been through this enough times to know exactly when it  _ should.  _ A different group of people rushed inside and restrained Byran to the floor before he could deliver the fatal blows to himself… there was blood everywhere and his face had basically swollen shut. Even on the ground, he tried banging his head against the hard floor,  _ determined  _ to end his life. Toriel couldn’t even  _ blame  _ him for this,  _ anything  _ was better than the barbaric way he was  _ “supposed”  _ to go. She may have even felt  _ relief  _ if he managed to succeed. He did  **_not_ ** though… During the struggle, someone stuck a needle into him that caused everything to go black. 

Toriel almost cried with giddying force because when the world came back, it was a room she had never seen before in her life… Byran had not died. Instead, he had fallen unconscious and (now) had woken up in a bigger room with all white walls with various cabinets lining them. There was one more thing… he was strapped to a padded table in the middle of the room with bandages wrapped around his head. 

Toriel really didn’t understand these humans. They went through all of this trouble to keep him alive… when they were just going to kill him later. He wasn’t happy with his new accommodations, Byran struggled and writhed with his restraints the entire time. After some of this ‘new waiting’ Toriel could hear voices. There was nobody in the room except Byran, and Adre hadn’t showed up either. Toriel could just make out a muffled conversation behind a large mirror situated on a wall in the room. Three people were talking, one of them (a woman) sounded unhappy. 

“Alright, what do we have here?” 

“Suicide attempt. We had to stop him from caving his own skull in on his cell door.” 

Toriel recognized this voice, he was one of the people that ushered Byran to his death when the time came. His name was A. Keller, that’s what his name tag said at least. 

The woman responded with another question.

“Who is this? Where are his psych records?” 

Keller spoke next.

“Oh no, that’s Byran Rantz, he’s just a normal DM. We don’t have any records on him.”

Now the woman sounded blatantly frustrated, bewildered too.

“You  _ don’t  _ have any records? I don’t understand, you were to request them.”

Then came the third voice, the one Toriel didn’t recognize. He sounded like he was trying to validate his buddy here.

“You  _ don’t  _ understand. This guy has been here for eight years and hasn’t so much as moved or anything. We only recently started hearing him muttering to himself and what not. But up until this morning, he’s been just  _ fine. _ ”

The woman was angrier.

“And you haven’t thought to add this to his psych evaluation?”

Keller chimed in.

“Uhh… he doesn’t  _ have  _ one. He’s not insane or anything.” 

A period of silence fell on them. Toriel thought they had left for a moment even. Then came the female voice, back with a purpose.

“Tell the warden I need to see him.  **_Now._ ** He is to  _ postpone  _ this execution and move this prisoner into P block ASAP. I want an evaluation scheduled  **_now_ ** and I want to see the entry records  _ too…  _ or did you also overlook those?”

It sounded like there was some low voiced argument going on, nothing comprehensible. Keller became the first to be heard again.

“You don’t even understand what this guy  _ did.” _

Toriel could  _ hear _ the scoff come from the woman.

“I think you’re on the wrong side of the bars in here. This is  _ unacceptable  _ treatment, not to mention behavior. You’ve kept him in solitary confinement for eight years when he could  _ most likely  _ need to be placed in a psychiatric hospital. Not only would you be mistreating an inmate, but it wouldn’t even be  _ that _ \- this facility has a specific and frankly  _ terrible  _ reputation for misplacing and mistreating mental patients.”

“And just  _ who are  _ **_you?_ ** Coming in here, telling us how to do our jobs _? _ ”

  
  


“I represent the state’s department of corrections and mental wellness. I answer straight to the governor and what he can see is public outcry and mountains of litigation. Now, don’t make me ask again:  _ take him off of  _ **_Death. Row…”_ **

Toriel was in utter disbelief. Did this unknown woman just advocate for this cycle of madness and torment to  **STOP?** There was no need to become hopeful and foolish but she  _ really  _ wanted to right now. The only thing Toriel could even think of would be how miraculous it’d be if this was all put to an end. She wanted no more than to meet this person and express her immense gratitude if that is what this all meant. 

And that’s exactly what happened the day of:  **May 23rd** came by and went without Byran being put to death. That faceless woman had saved his life… at least for a while. They moved him into a brighter cell with observation windows, he was kept restrained to his bed… even less freedom than he had as a prisoner on death row. But Toriel had all the freedom of not having to die with him, all the freedom of sitting and waiting for the next event to happen. All of the freedom in this small world to wonder… if all the torture could’ve been avoided if Byran tried to commit suicide on the first loop. How could she have answered this question? How could she have answered the reasoning behind these ‘ _ resets _ ’? She couldn’t. 

Weeks passed with no more occurrences… at least if you didn’t count all of the hallucinations Byran had. Adre wasn’t too happy with him for how he ended up, she liked to poke and prod at him knowing that he couldn’t move or defend himself. While not dying was great… where was this ‘evaluation?’, and why did Toriel get it in her head that it would actually amount to something  **_good?_ ** That it would solve all of his problems as if Brainz didn’t result from something.

It turned out that his “salvation” was only a month away, and it  _ all  _ revolved around his new cell neighbor. The day of  **June 26th 2004** went just as it should’ve, being strapped to the bed all day while being fed slop and having to wear a diaper while you felt your dignity leaking out.  **9:35 PM:** the guards came inside and removed him from the bed for his weekly, nightly shower. He did not fight them, he did not resist: he let them escort him down the hall and to the shower room while similar teams did the same for his neighbors. Nothing but the sound of footsteps echoing and gear jostling around. 

**Suddenly,**

The lights went out, a dying whirring sound followed the entire facility losing power and putting everyone in growing darkness for a prolonged moment.  _ Then  _ came the rumble of the diesel generators kicking in, yellow backup lights flicked on.  **_Then…_ ** came the first explosion, it was distant enough not to be seen, but the entire building rocked. Another moment of growing confusion and sowed chaos rose up with the guards exclaiming and blindly questioning each other for answers they didn’t have… Then the sirens started blaring and red klaxon lights starting spinning.

[EMERGENCY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qt6WXv_hPA)

  
  


“ **All personnel! Emergency! We are under attack, repeat, we are** **_under attack!_ ** **There’s been a breach in P block with an unknown number of armed intruders entering the facility. All inmates return to their cells IMMEDIATELY, lockdown has been initiated!”**

The PA system was barely audible over the screaming alarms, but the panic in the speaker’s voice was easily picked out. 

“Holy shit! Alright you heard- get these guys back to their cells! We gotta go let’s  _ go!”  _

There were three groups of guards and inmates, all made a U turn and headed back for the containment unit while further manhandling their prisoners. Their radios started going off, all kinds of vocal fireworks crackling into the air. Nothing could be made out. 

_ Another  _ explosion, a  _ closer  _ one blew out all of the windows. Everyone inside acted accordingly and gave a startled shout, one guard fell over from the discombobulation. As they neared the holding cells in their damn hurry, sporadic gunfire could be heard behind the walls. 

“Jesus christ, y’hearing this shit?”

“Well  _ yeah,  _ this is going down in  _ our  _ block! We gotta hurry!”

“Wait  _ what?!” _

“Didn’t you guys  _ hear??  _ They said  **P** block!”

More muffled gunfire increased the panic, paired with the flashing lights battling the dark; coordination was impaired. 

The one guard cowered and leaned himself against a wall.

“We gotta get outta here then! If they’re  _ here _ then that means they could just-”   
  


* * *

As sudden as they went on, all the alarms went silent and all the red flashing lights were overtaken by an intensely bright  _ flash.  _ The one guard- the one  **_group_ ** closest to the cell doors had vanished into a cloud of dust and debris while fire bloomed all around it. Byran’s group was the farthest away from the explosion, but the shockwave knocked them all down. 

He looked up, his vision still blurry and saw people wearing ski masks and holding assault rifles running in from the gaping hole in the concrete. Everyone in the front group was killed by the blast except one of the guards… he squirmed around as the assailants entered but was put down with a single shot to his head. The guards in the middle group suffered a similar fate as they tried to get back to their feet only to be hit by the automatic weapons. Byran’s guards too, they tried to turn and run away, and were both promptly shot in the back numerous times. He hadn’t gotten up yet or even tried, Byran just watched most of the men crowd around the middle group’s prisoner.

“Boss! Are ye hit?” 

That was all he could hear with his ears still ringing from the blast, the alarms still going loud too. He just watched the strange interaction as these men picked up the prisoner and pilfered his shackle’s keys from his dead handler to free him. Byran was so affixed by it that he wasn’t prepared for one of the men to notice him and call out.

“Ay! We got a live orange here! Whatta we do?”

“ **_Kill him…”_ **

  
  


‘ _ No  _ no! Nonononono!’

Toriel found herself trying to vouch for Byran’s life, panicked and forgetting her circumstances. She was just too afraid of going back,  **_anything but that, PLEASE._ **

Byran had suffered overall atrophy from being dormant for eight years, there was no way he could physically out do these people. His mental state was shot… he couldn’t think of anything to do or say except to start scooting himself backwards with his shaking hands trying to shield himself. Years of neglecting his voice led it to become quite shy, especially when he’d have to yell to be heard over the chaos. He croaked and felt the agony in his throat.

“ _ Wait!”  _

His requests were not even considered, the man planted himself before him and aimed his rifle right into Byran… but nothing happened. Byran didn’t close his eyes or look away in anticipation, he wanted to get a good look at the man who was going to kill him… Instead, he witnessed the weapon malfunctioning and refusing to fire. 

“ _ RRgghh!  _ You  **_piece of_ ** _ shit! Again?!” _

He watched the man struggle with his weapon, improperly holding it and improperly servicing it to mend the problem. If it misfired it was going to hit him squarely in the chest but he was certain that it wouldn’t, not the way its owner was trying to clear it. For the first time in eight years, Byran had that ‘look’ on his shallow face. He squinted and his good eye relaxed while the red one remained static. His focus was less on living… getting away, or formulating how he would exploit this situation, but on the one thing that couldn’t have changed since his incarceration. 

When the guy became fed up with how he couldn’t pull the bolt back and pummeled the side of the receiver, Byran rasped with everything he had… but still tried to sound calm.

“You gotta put it on the ground and use your  _ foot  _ to open the bolt.” 

There was a pause in the gun mishandling. 

“... _ What?” _

He had the man’s full attention… probably because he couldn’t be heard. Byran repeated not his words but what he was trying to convey, he even sat up more and pointed at everything he was referring to just in case.

“You’ve got a  **_CASING_ ** stuck inside of the  **_CHAMBER_ ** , look! The bolt isn’t open or closed, it’s  _ stuck  _ halfway. You’re not gonna clear it unless you stand it up and stomp the bolt open!”

Again another pause and a skeptical look through the only place he could see face in the ski mask. But the guy did just that, standing the weapon up on its buttplate and carefully hovering a foot onto the notch attached to the bolt. He even looked to Byran for an affirmation if he was doing it right, to which Byran nodded at him.

“Just  **_stomp_ ** it! It’ll be  **_fine!”_ **

Finishing his words with a painful cough.

And that’s exactly what it did, the troublesome bullet casing popped out with a loud enough metallic sound. The guy held up his gun and even racked it a couple of times to make sure it was within working condition again before pointing it back at Byran who didn’t even show any concern for himself. 

“Y’know, this wouldn’t happen if you were using a  _ real  _ gun, good to know you’re going in guns ablazing with a chintzy Chinese knockoff. You’re lucky you didn’t shoot me first and leave a guard for last.”

Before his ‘would be’ killer could say ‘What?’ Again, his buddies had just about left the room, one of them stayed behind to call for him.

“ _ AY!  _ Let’s  _ GO,  _ we gotta  **_go!_ ** What’s the holdup!?”

Aaand…  _ there _ it was, Byran got what he wanted. The man standing over him looked to him, then back to his friends a couple of times. He was  _ hesitating.  _

“ _ Uh-  _ my  _ weapon  _ malfunctioned again!” 

“What? Oh  _ god.  _ **_Dammit!_ ** We don’t got  _ time  _ for this!”

The group of ski masks paused their exit and all started peering back through the hole while the first backup quickly approached Byran and his ‘companion’. Even while they were coming to shoot him without a moment’s notice, Byran kept talking.

“I was an arms dealer before. They got me but they didn’t get my  _ stash!  _ You want? I can put a  **_real_ ** rifle in your hands.  **M16** Military grade, U.S.A. I can get you  _ all  _ real guns!  **Big guns!** **_Machine guns!”_ **

“What the hell in horseshit is going on here?! I told you to kill him and get going!”

A different ski mask lambasted the one with the faulty rifle, he tried to speak for himself but his first friend spoke for him.

“His AK malfunctioned again.”

“This guy told me how to fix it and he said he knew how to get us better guns…”

Byrans first impression on the rest of the group went l like this.

“That’s not an AK, that’s a Type 52 Chinese reproduction rifle… You can tell by the way the top is  _ smooth.  _ Real AKs have these rims on the top-”

One of the guys was actually armed with a real AK-47, so Byran pointed to him casually.

“-see look,  **_rims._ ** 1 outta 4 of yous got a real gun… I can  **_change_ ** that. The next guy you try to shoot with a type four malfunction isn’t gonna tell you how to fix it, he certainly won't offer what  _ I  _ can.” 

…

…

…

Their guns were lowered.

“Who the hell  **_are_ ** you?” 

Then came a new voice, a new person for this awkwardly timed dispute. The only other man in an orange jumpsuit these people didn’t kill.

“The hell’s the hold up?! You waiting for the  _ cops  _ to show up? Hey… I know  _ you…  _ You’re uhm-”

He snapped his fingers a couple of times for thought and then lit up.

“You’re Byran  _ Rantz!  _ You’re the black market guy! You sold us the  _ explosives  _ back then!”

Then he looked behind him to the devastation they caused.

“Well I guess we know they  _ work!” _

Back to him.

“When did they get ahold a  **_you?”_ **

“Ninety- _ seven!” _

Another string of louder and closer sounding gunfire reminded everyone of the urgency of this situation, Byran made his intentions clear. 

“Take me with you- You want guns? I’ll  _ give em  _ to you! I getchu guys all the guns you’ll ever need! FREE!” 

There was but a moment of shared glances and double takes, then the other inmate sternly nodded.

“Alright then! Let’s get the  _ fuck outta here!”  _

A hand was offered to help Byran to his feet and then they were all off. The person once tasked to kill him would now be the thing keeping him from death. The group hurried through rooms full of smoke and dead corrections officers all connected by makeshift entrances created by the explosives. Eventually they were joined up by smaller groups of intruders, who needed a quick confirmation by their apparent boss that Byran was with them now. Their excursion through the prison block would end at the very place it started, a massive hole tearing the office section open: where Byran could see the outside world and the stars in the night sky. He absolutely wanted to step outside, but the boss had something else in mind first.

“Yeah, I know you’re itchin to leave as much as  _ I  _ am, there’s somethin we gotta take  _ care  _ of first!”

To a large portion of his masked followers.

“Get the trucks started, we’ll be right out!”

They all scampered out of the building while Byran was ushered deeper into the guards’ violated domain, stepping over blood soaked corpses. He ended up being brought to the warden’s office where more masked goons were emptying jerry cans full of gasoline onto the floor.

“Alright fellas, that’s  _ enough.  _ We’re bout ready to  _ leave!  _ But before we  _ do-  _ this here is our new  _ friend!  _ He wants out  _ too!  _ But we don’t got a  _ sample  _ of him to leave behind! You know what we gotta do!” 

They dropped their arson tools and the boss stepped aside for them to suddenly restrain Byran and hold him down onto the warden’s desk, defeating a manner of stacked and disheveled papers and folders. Of course he tried to fight them with all kinds of thrashing, but his weakened state made it impossible. Before he could exclaim or ask anything, the boss got his attention and asked him this question.

“What hand are you? Are you a  _ righty  _ or a  _ leftie?” _

Byran was too bewildered to answer but he was asked again.

“ _ Right or left handed,  _ **_hurry up!”_ **

The thing about someone shouting in your face like that, it was like an override on your inhibitions.

“Uh-  _ LEFT!...  _ **_Why?_ ** **What is-”**

Before he could finish this question, one of the goons holding him down forced Byran’s right arm onto the table and fanned his fingers out. The boss only said this once-

“Hold  _ still  _ you!”

-And was handed a small metal handaxe from one of his men, Byran made some kind of terrified noise in protest but no words came into fruition… not like they would’ve helped him. He didn’t hold still and made one last effort to break away before the boss swung the axe down…

**And took off half of his ring finger with a single chop.**

Toriel had heard Byran exclaim and groan in pain before, many times. But she’d never heard him yell like this before, it lingered inside of her, to echo forever. She could hear his ill vocal chords tearing themselves to make this absolutely agonized sound.

When his most pained sounds turned into incredibly pained breaths, he yelled.

“ **_OHH my, GOD! WHAT THE_ ** **_FUCK??!”_ **

They still wouldn’t let him move or tend to his bleeding hand, instead the boss got real close to his face again and picked up the severed digit. 

“You walk outta here without leaving something behind? You’ve escaped prison, and they’ll hunt ya until they put ya  _ back… _ you see  _ this?  _ You leave this behind and you’re  **_dead._ ** You died during the incident and this finger is all they found of ya in the pile of unrecognizable body parts in the main hall. Y’hear?” 

He had no choice but to nod submissively, it was the only way they would let him go so he could apply pressure to it… another reason why he did it so fast was that he had something else occupying his mind. As his head was pressed onto the desk, for some reason his good eye made out his  _ name  _ on the tab of a manilla folder sticking out of a pile. It was his  _ record _ that the warden was supposed to overlook, buried under a stack of other papers he neglected. He would take the thing, smearing it with his own blood before finding a way to hold it as well as cover up his bloody nub. 

“It’s me.” 

He just blankly said, most likely in shock. Nobody argued with him.

They all left, the office was set ablaze and a piece of Byran was left behind to burn with the rest of the sin that lay on the floor. When he stepped outside, he could hear the very distinct sound of sirens in the distance… for once they weren’t coming for  _ him.  _ What a nice change… he thought as he was still in agonizing pain. 

The method of escape for these people wasn’t something glamorous or bold like in the movies. Byran’s wondering was put down like a dog when he saw the masked people helping each other into the backs of  _ garbage trucks  _ parked just outside of the prison. This escape plan  _ reeked…  _ like seriously, Byran would start to feel lightheaded and nauseous after five minutes. (It probably wasn’t from the shock) 

To his surprise… to Toriel’s too;  **it worked.** Nobody stopped them, nobody would stop the garbage men during their normal appointed hours, nobody knew the trucks were full of murderers and escaped convicts.  ~~ Byran was a free man  ~~

* * *

  
  


**Byran Rantz was dead.**

He read his own alleged obituary in the paper, days later from the attack. Of course it was more like a footnote inside of the cover story.

**TERRORIST ATTACK**

**ON GRUNEY PENITENTIARY**

**DOZENS FOUND DEAD**

-including the notorious ‘Ebott Massacre’ Culprit, Byran Rantz. Believed to be of the many unrecognizable and charred bodies recovered from the heavily damaged section of the prison. 

He folded up the paper and placed it atop of the blood stained folder sitting at the foot of his new cot, given to him by the group he had just joined.

They called themselves the  **“Dead Enders”** an extremist group who showed their disdain for the government by killing innocent people and inflicting wanton destruction… at least that’s what Byran gathered from it. They would claim responsibility for their actions by leaving a pair of symbols graffitied wherever they trampled. Something Toriel had seen before… when Brainz lifted his sleeves and showed her the tattoos on his shoulders. 

**θꭥ**

They told Byran that those symbols spelled “Dead end.” He wasn’t going to doubt them. 

  
  


Their leader had been incarcerated for two years on a longer sentence for murder, he hadn’t been tied to his group yet and played ‘insanity’ to get moved to the lower security block as part of the plan to get him out. He was also among the ‘dead’ from the attack. 

Speaking of dead.

“So, how does it feel to be ‘dead’?”

The leader approached him in the hideout, Byran had no clue as to what or where it was… he was in the back of a garbage truck when he arrived and was told to look down at his feet until he was brought inside… he hadn’t seen the outside world since and wasn’t allowed to yet. 

The leader approached him and asked him that question with a bit of humor to it.

“I don’t know… I don’t really feel  _ anything…  _ specifically where my finger used to be.”

Byran’s wound had been tended to and wrapped up with gauze, he was still hung up about it. (As he should be, it wasn’t like he could ever get that part of him back.)

The leader chuckled.

“Good, it means the painkillers are working… Now you need to know we don’t all live here like insurgents, this is just our…  _ clubhouse  _ so to speak, we meet here for darts too. All of us here live very normal and distinguished lives. You wouldn’t have any clue looking at some of these joes that they were doing god’s dirty work… Anyway, what we do here and what we do on our own in our own places are two completely different things.  _ Y’know,  _ separating work from home?”

“Yeah. I get it.”

“ _ Nowww,  _ being that Byran Rantz is  _ dead _ and all, you’re gonna need to be someone else outside of  _ ‘work’ _ .” 

“I don’t like lying to people… It’s only screwed everyone over.” 

“Hey hey  _ hey  _ now… what’s with the doom and gloom? You just carpooled out of prison and got to meet back up with your best  _ customer!  _ Now you get to work for him  _ and  _ he’s gonna set you  _ right _ up so you can live a  _ nice _ and normal life. Y’know kind of like you were doing before with your buddy there? What happened to your friend anyway? Did he end up in the can too?”

“ **_Fuck_ ** **him…** ” 

“ _ Ooohh.  _ My condolences, good sir.”

A moment of silence and tension before the man spoke up again, he had sounded quite chipper since his breakout.

“Well  _ anyways-  _ ever heard about the ‘Witness Protection Program?...”

  
  
  


This group had the means to end lives but they also had the means to ‘create’ them as well, at least the illusions of such things. Anytime one of their members would be caught or a newcomer needed a clean slate, they would ‘kill them’ and add a completely new person to their ranks: someone who didn’t exist outside of the documents they were printed on. Typically, barring a name change and a made up bio: no further changes would have to be made… but Byran had notoriety prior to this, so he would need to be a little ‘more’ different. 

“So, I think you should keep your hair grown out, you kept it short before and the only people who really saw you like this are now  _ dead.  _ Beard too, the scraggly hair makes you kind of look like a bum… Hmm, there’s not much we can do about the scars on yer face but if you keep to yourself and keep your hair long you should be good.”

He squinted after staring at Byran’s face for an uncomfortable moment.

“I  _ think  _ your one eye there can only help too. What  _ happened  _ to it anyway? What’d they do to it? Can you still  _ see _ out of it? I’ve never seen this happen with someone before.”

Bluntly.

“No, It went blind after I got shot in the head.”

“And you  _ lived?  _ God- **_damn_ ** you’re lucky. You live through that and then you meet  _ me?  _ What else have you done? Found a way to grow four leaf clovers in your spice garden?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” 

As this went on, the one resource these people did not have was the ability to remove tattoos, and the ‘cool’ gun toting snake on Byran’s arm was going to be a problem. The solution was in their strength of having a prison tattoo artist in their midst, they would simply add to him and the snake. Byran Rantz didn’t have this many tattoos but... 

To his request (and his surprise that it hurt even more than the first tattoo), Byran was given a set of additional tattoos onto the backs of his hands. He saw what he added as a way to remind himself of the lesson he finally learned the hard way. 

**^**

**KILL (or be) KILL(ed)**

**V**

And on his blank arm, a strange little code was written in bold characters. Something with a meaning that he wouldn’t share with his neighbors. 

**(03[AR-7:BR-26]-19)**

The snake itself had a makeover, the artist was a fair bit less skilled and equipped than the professional Byran went to in his old life. Effort was made to increase the snake’s size, now coiling up his entire arm losing a lot of fine detail in the process. 

The next and last physical change wasn’t of Byran’s decision or will… Byran Rantz had a decent dental history, he still had all of his teeth. The person he was about to be, wasn’t so good with a toothbrush according to their backstory and had to have one of his canine teeth  PAINFULLY PULLED  replaced by a silver implant done by a crooked dentist who wasn’t very gentle with him. The guy did such a shoddy job that it didn’t even match the size of the other canine, it was so long actually that it would often show through the slight recess he had in his lips from his childhood injuries. It was really uncomfortable too, and that was after it finally healed, but Byran was already in constant pain and taking illegal medication for it so what was a little more incentive to keep taking it? 

Lastly, to complete his new identity… he needed a name. They let him pick what the document forgers would put on his ID, what he was going to be referred to for the rest of his life… (Or at least until he had to make another one). Byran sat on this one for a while, it wasn’t easy thinking of a name when he hadn’t fully come to terms with what was happening. His life was over… and he was abandoning it. That’s it. He was the sole bearer of the Rantz name and he was going to be buried with it… albeit underneath six feet of lies. Everything he had done and withstood, every hardship, every accomplishment, it would be like they never happened…  **_fine._ **

Everything that made him special was already gone… there was no reason for Byran to live anymore… Well. One small exception. As Byran waited for his ‘tooth’ to heal so he could remove the gauze for a driver’s license photo… he occupied himself by pawing through the record he snatched from the prison. 

The thing was chock full of notes and documents over all the terrible and ghastly things he had done, a lot of ‘official’ looking typing to make it look like someone knew what they were doing while convicting him. One paper had all these big and ‘scary’ words on it circled in red.

**BIPOLAR I**

**INTERMITTENT EXPLOSIVE DISORDER**

**ACUTE PARANOIA**

**SCHIZOPHRENIA**

**POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER**

The thing that stood out to him… that  _ mattered _ to him, was actually the only reason he grabbed the folder in the first place. He had a strange suspicion that it’d be in there. The piece of yellowed construction paper, the pink girl who made him want to remember. He knew he was about to fall into a very dark pit, one he was never going to climb out of. So he wanted something that would let him remember what it was like before he fell in… no matter how far he fell.

“I know what I want my name to be.”

One word.

One name. 

Brainz. 

  
[Don't Worry Sweetie...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgtYW6o_FB0)   
  
  
  
  
  
  



	19. 18

**“My name’s Brainz: Just how you say it. Mind the ‘s’, replace it with a ‘** **_z_ ** **’ and it’s just that.”**

‘Brainz… that’s. An interesting name.’

**“I agree, but it’s mine and that’s what I go by.”**

‘You really have it rough out there, huh?’

**“You don’t know the half of it.”**

_ You don’t know the half of it… _

**_You don’t know the half of it…_ **

**You don’t know the half of it…**

**Y O U D O N ‘ T K N O W T H E H A L F O F I T . . .**

_ Where’s the bad guy? _

Somewhere… a voice could be heard. It sounded angry, poisoned by its own self resentment. 

**Like I said, it’s not your fault… that you wasted your time and feelings on me… but I’m just a bad guy.**

**THE BIG** **_BAD BRAINZ!_ **

**_He’s the BAD guy!_ **

**_Strike down the bad guy!_ **

**_Let’s go kill us a BAD guy!_ **

  
  


The voice was wracked with grief, high with immaturity and infected with terror.

**_I THOUGHT_ ** **YOU WERE MY** **_FRIEND!!_ **

**I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE GOOD GUY**

**BUT YOU’RE THE** **_BAD GUY!_ **

The voice melded into some low and growling, just barely containing the hostility.

**You’re going to** **_buurn_ ** **for this. Oh what they’re going to** **_do_ ** **to** **_you._ ** **They’re going to find the deepest and hottest part of hell. They’re gonna go** **_all_ ** **the way to the bottom, and when they get there? They’re gonna dig it six feet deeper just for you…**

**You can still stop this.**

**You can still make it up.**

**All you have to do is stop.**

**_Stop…_ **

**_Just stop_ **

**_Please stop._ **

**_STOP DOING THIS AND JUST-_ **

* * *

“ _ Stop!” _

~~ Byran  ~~ Brainz had to yell to get everyone’s urgent attention, all eyes darted to him.

“It’s right here! You’re gonna miss it!”

The vehicle swerved across two lanes of angry and honking traffic to make the road deviating from the highway. An unmaintained tree made it impossible to make out the explanatory sign until it was nearly too late.

  
  


**|MT EBOTT ^^ |EXIT 200 >>**

**|3 MILES | Lodging | Rest Center**

The sudden sharp movement made Brainz lurch forward and nearly face plant onto the dashboard. 

“Christ, man!”

The driver was fast with a comeback.

“Hey, we made your stupid exit did we not?.. Does this county even  _ do  _ roadwork? You can’t fucking  _ see  _ anything except all the  _ pot-holes.  _ How far are we s’posed to stay on this road?”

“Not much longer…”

Brainz sat back and leaned against his window. 

Here passed another unspecified chunk of time imperceptible to Toriel, it had to have been fair because Brainz’s partial finger was now without any bandages. In terms of his appearance, he still looked too young and not ragged enough. His clothing was close too, he hid himself in a dark blue hoodie and had on a pair of dirty black sweatpants. No combat boots yet, just red sneakers. He was in a large SUV with three ‘Dead enders’ also in their normal street clothes. It was getting dark outside, the sun was on its way down behind the walls of trees lining the lonely road. 

“There.”

He suddenly chimed.

“Where?”

“ **_There.”_ **

Brainz pointed through the windshield into the line of trees.

“I don’t  _ see _ anything- that little clearing?”

“Yeah.”

The driver squinted and slowed down, he hadn’t moved the steering wheel though.

“There’s no  _ sign _ or anything-  _ this little dirt path:  _ are you  **_sure?”_ **

“ _ Yes.  _ I am, just go before someone sees us.”

The guy made a ‘ _ Tch’  _ sound and shrugged, sounding very skeptical if not submissive.

“ _ Alright…” _

The vehicle left the established road and delved into this tight overgrown path which was almost like a cave from all the dense and low hanging branches above. It was nearly pitch black in there, all that could be seen was lit up by the eyes of the vehicle. 

Brainz dropped his hood and straightened himself. 

“Mm, stop here. Let me out.”

“Why?”

“ **Stop.** There’s most likely a chain gate up ahead, if I’m right it’ll be just as I left it eight years ago, I gotta lift it.” 

He guided the vehicle behind him for a few yards and-  _ yep:  _ one rusty chain strung across the driveway, melded together by rust. Brainz uncoupled it and returned to his spot in the car. He also gave the rest of the occupants a bit of a history lesson.

  
  


In  **_1966,_ ** there was an attempt to start up a bustling tourism industry all around the scenic Mount Ebott. Alongside a whole lot of tacky souvenir shacks and pretentious exhibits, some genius had the great idea to build a crappy motel just outside of the national park for  _ all  _ the people who were going to flock here… it closed its doors in  **_1969._ ** It turned out nobody wanted to drive out all this way for a boring little rock and nobody wanted to pay for inflated commodities surrounding this rock either. Since then, the place lay derelict yet strangely preserved. It was still uninhabited (At least by humans, it’d be funny if not a stretch to assume not even animals wanted to nest inside), even  _ now:  _ too far away from civilization for hobos and too inconvenient to be used as a clubhouse for illicit activities. Byran never minded though… 

They pulled into the vacant parking lot and found a good spot to park alongside a mostly illegible promotion sign, brought down by weather and time. Brainz gave everyone a minute to get out of the car, stretch their legs, and stare curiously at the decrepit building. 

“Alright, come with me.”

A couple of guys were a little squeamish about actually going inside as Brainz lead them to the ivy covered office.

“It smells like  _ piss  _ in here and I think I see black mold growing on the ceiling, are you  _ kidding  _ with this place?”

Brainz turned around and sounded like a robot with how monotonous he answered. 

“Yeah, I am actually: I just made us go out here because I thought it would be funny to waste your time…” 

“Are you  _ serious?!  _ Aw  **_fuck_ ** you!” 

It was a good thing somebody else butted in.

“I think he’s being sarcastic.” 

Brainz didn’t say anything further, he reached through the broken glass of the front door and unlatched it from the other side. A flashlight was produced from his pocket, illuminating the creepy interior. 

“C’mon…”

No joy in his voice, the only emotion that even tried to make it in was irritation. Like he didn’t want to be here as much as everyone else. 

As they all filed inside, the sassy one took notice of a little sign saturated with brown rust just next to the entrance. Some yellow and black triangles with the words:  **FALLOUT SHELTER (IN BASEMENT)** underneath. 

“Huh.”

There was another sign attached to a door behind the dust covered reception desk.

**STAFF ONLY (Unless in Emergency)**

Brainz obviously ignored the rule and pushed it open to reveal a staircase leading to a deeper and darker basement.

It was even more uninviting down here, the alleged smell of urine was replaced by the pungent odor of must. It was colder down here yet somehow  _ stuffy.  _ This place must have flooded sometime ago, there was ruined and abandoned furniture strewn about with the impressive dust collection. Brainz lead everyone deeper into this place while they subtly protested and recoiled at the unpleasant setting… he himself didn’t show any bother or emotion for it until they reached a small doorway at the end of the basement. He had a sudden spasm with a quick profanity.

“ _ Fuck!”  _

“What? What’s the matter??” 

Brainz shuddered forcefully and waved his arm all inside the doorframe, dispelling a community of cobwebs. 

“ **_Spiders._ ** I fuck’n  _ hate  _ them… we’re almost there.”   
  


The final destination was a cramped corridor lined with sizable washing and drying machines that were far dirtier than anything ever put inside of them. There was a big steel door at the end of the corridor, it looked like it was intended to handle extreme stress. It was closed and sealed shut by a large padlock on its handle. 

“Uhhh, someone locked it.”

Brainz nodded.

“Yeah.  _ I  _ did… before I left.” 

  
  


“How’re we supposed to  _ open  _ it?” 

While one man was getting quickly agitated, Brainz reached into the back of one of the machines-

“With the  _ key.” _

-and jingled the little keyring he found. 

The lock was stiff and really didn’t want to open up but it eventually gave in and fell to the floor. Brainz just stood there though, even with the door now accessible: he only moved when someone decided to ignore him and lean over to get the door open. 

“ _ Wait!” _

He grabbed the man’s arm with a quick snatch, everyone flinched from his sudden exclamation. The person he stopped became instantly agitated from the contact and (once again) delay.

“ _ What?!  _ The fuck is your  _ problem??”  _

Brainz did not reply to him though, instead he decisively instructed everyone to step out from this antechamber. Their confusion and irritation did not earn their subordination until he himself became angry.

“Just  _ do it,  _ goddammit- just for a  _ second! _ I gotta  _ see _ something!” 

They backed out, he made sure they did with wide staring eyes, not turning back to the door until he couldn’t see anybody. 

“Make sure you stand clear of the door _ too!”  _

With that out of the way, Brainz grabbed the door handle with both hands and lowered himself to the floor: as long as his arms could reach. He made a very deliberate effort  _ not _ to be in front of the door when he opened it. As expected, the thing really did not want to budge: Brainz eventually had to stand himself up a bit for more leverage, something he did not want to do. A loud metal bang confirmed the sudden  _ jerk  _ he got from the door, getting it a couple of inches out of the frame before Brainz seemed to panic and pushed it closed again. 

His reputation for being  crazy  unhinged didn’t really exist yet, so there were some murmurs he could hear coming from behind. It sounded like they were making fun of him to Brainz. 

“Y’know, maybe I shoulda let you guys open the door…”

Why was this such a big deal in the first place? 

Brainz went back to crouching away and cautiously pulled the large thing open, it made a dry scraping noise that made everyone in the basement cringe. Slowly and beyond deliberately, he was pulling the thing open  _ so _ slow that some of the men were convinced he was doing this as a joke, another ploy to waste their time. Well all of those suspicions went up in smoke when the tiny explosion erupted from within the new room and propelled a shockwave of substance outwards. A shockwave of dust… and  **_lead._ **

When the smoke cleared and the inevitable excitement died down, Brainz would shine his flashlight for everyone to see; on a smoking shotgun affixed to a chair bolted to the floor. He defeated his own boobytrap, and the ‘thanks’ were given to him as incredulous comments.

“Jesus Christ…”

Brainz had a cynically smug look on his face.

“Byran didn’t like people messing with his stuff.” 

With that out of the way, he stepped right inside: making no further acknowledgement to the thing that could’ve killed him or someone else if he didn’t remember setting it. 

When everyone was done making looks at the spent shotgun trap, Brainz took the liberty of throwing off a big blue tarp covering something in the corridor. It created another cloud of dust for dramatic effect. Brainz made sure to point the flashlight at the box of M16’s he just unveiled for everyone to see. It was funny to him how easy all the emotions in the room shifted. Irritation turning to intimidation, then to wonderment at the sight of the guns. The feeling only increased in the group as Brainz took them through the fallout shelter, uncovering and showing all of his weapons. Being this place was made to hold a motel full of people, there was ample space for an ample amount of firearms: some of the rooms were stocked up to the ceiling. 

~~ Machine guns, submachine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, handguns, medical supplies, explosives.  ~~

**M16s, M3a1 Greaseguns, Stevens and Savages, M40’s, Berettas, iFAKS, C4 charges.** Toriel could put a name and so much more information on everything she could see for reasons she could not answer. But what she could do, was sense this underlying pattern. Every piece of malice and related equipment Byran had dealt with was hauled directly from his father’s era. Smuggled from the United States Military,  **from the Vietnam War.** These things were born from conflict and served as the perfect symbolism that it was never allowed to end for Brainz. They were the only dependable thing he had in this world, he wrapped himself around with them like a blanket… Toriel already regretted taking his weapons away from him, but she didn’t have to live with the fact she took the only good thing in his life (that he could recognize as such) away from him. If the time ever came again somehow… she’d let him keep them, she would hand  _ deliver _ his weapons to him if she had another chance. 

As always,  **she only wanted to help** in the first place.

**_Too little. Too LATE._ **

“Holy.  _ Shit,  _ Brainz.”

He dusted off one particular rifle and showed it off.

“Like what you see? I know I do.” 

“Where- How the  _ fuck  _ did you get all of this stuff? You can outfit an  _ army!” _

“Where do you think I got all this from?” 

“The hell did you figure you were gonna  _ do  _ with all this? Start World War  _ III?” _

“Nah, nothing like that- we were shooting for something a bit smaller…  **_massacre_ ** at best. I- _ Byran  _ wanted to be sure he had everything he needed.” 

One of the guys came forth with something he picked up.

“What is this, is this a  **_bomb?”_ **

Brainz snatched the item from him.

“ _ Satchel Charge.  _ But yeah- y’know. You tell yourself that you’re never going to need to use  _ ‘explosives’  _ and then you need  **explosives** and you don’t have em.”

They all just looked at him funny.

“I got hand grenades too.”

It became apparent during his showcase that Brainz or  _ Byran  _ set this isolated place up as a personal hideout. The only room not dominated by munitions had a bed and similar accommodations in it. (There were still  _ guns _ in there, but they weren’t taking up most of the space) There were also things like a large tote tank for water and a homemade battery bank for the work lights networked around the shelter by a web of thick cables. One room in particular though… It looked like a workshop of sorts. 

One of the guys wandered into this strange room, even further unlike the others: while they were all cramped with their contents they at least showed some degree of organization. This one did not. There were a multitude of things just strewn all about, whether they were cluttering this desk or acting as hazards on the floor. Cases of ammunition, some still containing the 7.62mm rounds they boasted in big bold characters, partially assembled and loaded ammo belts suiting such rounds,  _ plenty  _ of rifle magazines, and two boxes of grenades with one intended for grenade launchers. 

The strangest thing about this was all of the empty and broken syringes scattered among all the loose ammo, no wait; the strangest thing was the full  _ clothing  _ mannequin standing beside the busy desk. It was completely naked while a pile of old and rotting clothing lay bunched up at its feet. There were empty bottles of alcohol too lying about. 

“Say uh-  _ Brainz!  _ The hell is all  _ this  _ in here?”

It took him a moment before his flashlight glared from the low clearance doorway, another moment for him to shine it on everything. Enough time for an addendum to the first question.

“What were you **_doing_** in here, before?” 

“ **Don’t worry about it.”**

Brainz projected those words, he wanted them to be the final words of this topic, even going so far as to blankly stare into the man who just squinted uncomfortably.

“Uhhhh.  _ Right.  _ O-kay then.”

What Brainz did next was influenced by how much he wanted to stare at the mess. He picked out his little ZIPPO lighter and even an old pack of cigarettes from the table, right where Byran left them. 

Pulled straight from a Vietnam War era ration pack.

‘Pall Malls.’ 

Brainz tried to get the lighter to work, dusting off the only remaining cigarette in the tiny pack. 

  
  


He was met with some disgust.

“Dude, is that a  _ Pall Mall?...  _ Actually, no- how long have you said this was sitting here?  _ Eight  _ **_years?”_ **

Brainz got a light and introduced it to the beyond stale cigarette, he put it to his lips without hesitating.

The disgust became full blown, the guy turned away while making an ugly noise.

“ _ Awwhh.  _ That’s fucking  **_nasty!_ ** What does that even taste like?”

A good long exhale studded with coughs, the face he made as he let it out… it looked like he sold his soul to the devil for five seconds of peace.

“Like absolute shit.” 

He took another drag. 

“Well I figured  _ that _ much, it’s a Pall Mall, what did you expect? I know  _ I  _ didn’t expect you to just up and light it up, you nasty weirdo.” 

He left Brainz alone to finish his smoke break, alone in his little room that only he knew about. Alone to look at everything and see more than a bunch of materials hit by age. Toriel could see it too, everything started to flicker: like another reality was fighting to take place here… Another time that he stood here: with a large machine gun on the desk, a suit of black armor covering the mannequin, and a big map taped above the desk. 

**EBOTT NATIONAL PARK**

The last thing Toriel could see of the glimpse were all the red X’s scribbled on the map, her and Brainz’s episode would end abruptly with the voice.

  
  


“I’m  _ here, _ Uncle Brainz. Where are you?” 

It was so faint, it was like the wind itself was calling for him. It wasn’t long before both of them were seeing RED pigtails. 

“ _ Found you!  _ What are you doing?” 

He brought out a pill bottle from his pocket and popped the top, he put three green tablets into his hand: the same ones Toriel would find in his pocket years later. Brainz took one look at the spectre and swallowed the pills… it started to cry and ran away before they could take effect and blur her into nothing. When the cries stopped coming in like the wind, Brainz left the room: Toriel followed him of course… but she would lose him the second she walked out.

The corridor of concrete and dust was now lit up by a dark red glow, Brainz was nowhere to be seen: everybody with him was gone too. They had all left… except for Adre. Toriel could see her running away, she could hear the patter of her little feet. Toriel did try to follow Brainz to the exit, she tried very hard not to pursue the red demon. No matter which turn she made, Adre was always just disappearing around the next one and  _ every time,  _ she was becoming harder to see. Her form lost lucidity, eventually looking like a red smudge on glass. But that smudge accomplished just what it desired to do: Toriel would find that she completely departed from the viewing point of the memories and ended up back inside of the rotting carcass of the red hell when she stopped. 

How could she not see it coming? The thing appeared for  _ her,  _ not Brainz. It brought her to exactly where it wanted. She could sense it waiting for her up ahead, Toriel could even  _ see _ the red eyes watching her from the dark… endlessly watching her from the eyes of a small child. But wait- she felt a strong presence growing behind her. In the place she was before, a boundless heaping of RED blocked her way. When she briefly turned back, the eyes were gone. 

The red mass or  _ Not-Toriel,  _ tried to build itself up to that stature. It struggled to form itself, gaining height and then collapsing back into itself: the very fleshy surface that it once feared to tread was now everywhere. Somehow, Toriel felt like she caused this change, that she robbed it of its respite. She pulled away the veils of deception and exaggeration, revealing that the red hell was just an endless shrine to agony. A place for Byran to relive his failures and shames without any hopes of ever healing. Not-Toriel had a part in building it… somehow it was able to manifest all these things, not anymore though. 

But now… if Not-Toriel’s ‘home’ was just insurmountable agony… what was  _ Not-Toriel?  _ This thing that danced as the very thorns that punctured your heart, what you saw in it was whatever it wanted to show you- whatever it wanted to remind you of,  _ whomever  _ it wanted to remind you of. But what it  _ really  _ was? Beneath all the stolen facades and smoke and mirrors? It was afraid of showing that part. It never cared about what Toriel would learn from Brainz’s memory, only that she’d get to see it in its rudimentary form. 

The red blob thrashed around like an ensnared animal, its contact with the flesh ground began to blacken it like wood charring from fire. The sound it made as it was overcome by the infectious gloom was a sickening procession of crackling sounds, like its own ‘flesh’ was being ripped apart and repurposed… repurposed into…

**Mouths…**

As the thing turned into  _ tar,  _ it looked like teeth were growing out of every possible place. Every inch of this unbelievable figure was covered in mouths: all of which were  _ snarling  _ and  **_snapping_ ** at Toriel. The shape of it was vaguely bipedal, and Toriel could just tell that it was  _ glaring  _ at her and  _ foaming  _ in every one of its gaping maws as they  **_growled_ ** and snorted fiercely. It radiated with fury, every instance of the hostile feeling was condensed and felt here. Toriel had never felt such secondhand  _ hatred  _ before…

Then it dawned upon her, what this thing was. She felt her lips moving as the wind quietly escaped her.

‘ **_Anger…’_ **

No sooner did she say that, did all of Brainz’s rage deliver an ear splitting  **_roar,_ ** every single mouth agape with a primal scream.

**_run..._ **

[ANGER](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhD9BusQpao)

She wouldn’t have moved if some unknown voice hadn’t told her to do so from behind. Toriel did just that, turning around and sprinting from the living emotion: It gave chase. Toriel couldn’t ponder what would happen if it caught her, she couldn’t think about what she was trying to do or where she was going, all she could think of was getting away. Toriel didn’t have to look back to realize the extreme danger, she  _ shouldn’t have _ looked back but she did. 

Toriel saw this feral animal storming for her on all fours, while it was roughly her size: the shadow it cast was  _ far  _ larger. It swallowed everything the beast crossed, taking every bit of destruction and debris, and adding them to its monumental size. Yet in the earth shattering glimpse she took, Toriel could see flashes of light within the black plane. Flickers of a silhouette, the shape of something small and young, wailing for everything wrong with the world. 

The warped hell had only become worse, collapsing and crushing in on itself with the weight of everything Brainz had done because of his insurmountable anger. Toriel had intense trouble traversing the mess while the thing just tore and  _ bashed  _ through everything behind her. It caused what was left of Brainz’s life to cave in and collapse in its wake. 

Toriel couldn’t outrun it, it was going to destroy  _ everything  _ just to get to her. As it grew nearer to her, Toriel could see all the doors in the corridor  _ bursting  _ with RED light. The ones streaked with blood glowed even brighter, the reddest of doors became even more red. Every single portal she passed, Toriel could hear the distinct sound of a child screaming with a plaintive wail. Every single one added to the growing cacophony of persisting cries all overlooked by the rage. 

At last, Toriel made the desperate move to stop herself just long enough to try one of the doors persisting in this world. This was still the red hell and it still contained every single memory… and this thing couldn’t reach her there. At least that’s what she hoped. Toriel ended up tumbling through a simple  _ push  _ door of all things, finishing her arrival by slamming the door to a public bathroom in rage’s face. 

She  _ thought  _ she could be safe in here.

She  _ thought  _ it would be a reprieve. 

But Toriel would be immediately met with one of anger’s faces… as Brainz was wearing it, his own was spattered with red as he stood over a downed form on the dirty bathroom tiles. In his grip was a tire iron dripping with blood, adding to the growing pool at his feet. Without warning, he raised the blunt object to the ceiling… and brought it down with both hands onto the human laying on the floor: splitting their battered head open. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	20. 19(97)

There was no escaping anger, not when it was already here. Brainz struck the victim over and over, many times even after his killing blow. The sick lamps in the ceiling flickered, making a gruesome slideshow out of the act. Toriel watched him toss the weapon aside and begin stomping on the bloody mess. RED spattered onto the grime covered mirrors. When Toriel looked into them though, she could see anger moving Brainz’s limbs. Like posing a ragdoll or moving a puppet.

There was no escaping anger, not when it controlled Brainz’s actions. It saw Toriel and then it was before her. She retreated into the collapsing hell, it was waiting for her and blocked her way. Toriel had to force herself through a broken window. There was a man inside of a filthy living room, he was on the floor and clutching a wound in his stomach. His face was a cocktail of fear and agony mixed with utter contempt.

“ **Fuck you** **_,_ ** **Rantz! You were supposed to** **_die!”_ **

A gunshot sounded and his head hit the ground with a spray of red mist. Anger was right behind the dead body, telling Brainz to shoot him again. Toriel had to leave before he ran out of ammo, before anger would see her again.

There was no escaping anger, not when it was his sole encouragement. It told Brainz things, it told him to  _ do  _ things. It made him look for people, people to slaughter. Toriel hid from it through elevator doors. They took her into a large office full of people: they let Brainz out into an office full of people…. He was wearing a hooded winter jacket and a ski mask. Nobody looked, they were all too busy working and keeping to themselves. Nobody noticed him, until he stopped at one man’s cubicle and waited for him to turn around in his chair to Brainz’s presence. Brainz then produced a sawed off shotgun from his coat and shot the man point blank, a storm of smoke and scattered papers filled the space. When the chaos took to the entire place, persons running and screaming in terror: Brainz was the only one who walked away. 

There was no escaping anger, not when he didn’t want to run from it. Everything started to meld together for Toriel. The damage of the hell was seeping into the memories again and she would not be able to find her way back… there would be a peculiar door or portal alike and she would be in the next one... anger was constantly on her tail now, nowhere to hide but plenty of discoveries to run into.

Toriel watched Brainz load the very magazines he would use to end other humans’ lives, the process was as meticulous as his planning was for every death. There were faces, there were names that came by too fast to read. They all shared one thing in common in that they had  **_wronged_ ** him, and played a part in bringing him here. Everybody Toriel saw shared that similarity and with anger motivating everything Brainz did… they were all going to share something else when he was done with them.

One such portal had her emerge from the chassis of a vehicle crumpled up from a terrible collision into the side of another, it pinned the victim vehicle to a tree and blocked all the doors. There was Brainz: age, accelerated by stress and toil had begun to burden his appearance. He was standing beside the wreck, bloodied and bruised. Instead of tending to himself, he was  _ watching.  _ There was a  **_dragon_ ** in the air, he threw it there. Tied to a flaming bottle that soared for the struck vehicle, the dragon soared for the occupants inside. Within a moment it engulfed the vehicle with its flames and sealed the fate for the people inside. The heat of the flames, the smell of burning fuel… and the  _ screaming.  _ It was horrible, but Brainz basked in it, he enjoyed every second of it. Of all the people in the car,  _ one  _ of them deserved this: one of them would die ironically as the flames Brainz set destroyed his entire world.

“Fair is fair, make sure he’s dead.”

Anger told him, as it kept him from leaving until the windows shattered, no movement inside. By the time an explosion bloomed from the wreck and the sirens were here: Brainz was gone. His actions had not gone unnoticed, anger was with him when a concerned voice questioned him.

“Brainz. Y-ye-you gotta  _ stop  _ this. Have you  _ seen  _ the news?”

He couldn’t sound any more indifferent.

“No, I didn’t have to, I stuck around until I knew he was dead.”

“They think  _ we _ did this, they tacked this on  _ us!” _

“So? You people kill other people for a living.”

“ _ Nonononoo!  _ Don’t you even start. We only take out the people who  _ deserve  _ it, what you did was  _ wanton destruction!  _ That’s not what we  _ stand  _ for!”

“He deserved it though… so did Louis Genereese.”

A moment of hesitation… followed by a voice burdened with apprehension.

“Wait… that was _you?_ The **burning car?** That was **_you_** that time? _You did that?_ Jesus- How could you? I mean: by god: you proved it wasn’t impossible but: how do you even comprehend what you’ve done… and just, why? How can so many… indescribable _barbarities_ run through you without so much as a single inch of guilt for the **_innocent_** people you’re killing!”

“He wasn’t innocent, he burned the house down.”

“What about the  _ family  _ he had in the car with him?! The other  **_three_ ** people you burned alive?!”

All Brainz did was repeat what was told to him, in a dark and cynical drone.

“Fair’s fair…”

And then he laughed, a wicked giggle shrouded with innuendo and reminiscent of the pain he brought. He had to laugh, or else he’d actually come to terms with what he did. His laughter only persisted when he set the royal guard captain on fire… and it only turned into a howling scream when he disemboweled her. Brainz laughed and laughed until he passed out on the floor when he learned his presence doomed everyone underground… when he ‘killed’ Toriel. Anytime he found himself marveling at how far down he fell, when it made him want to scream or cry, he just laughed. 

  
  


“Someone- **_HELP ME!”_ **

That voice rang through the same parking garage where Pailurn came from, it went well with the frantic echoed footsteps breaking through the tranquil emptiness. That same voice had been running for so long that it was running out of steam. Its own pants were a countdown to its end. Eventually it found itself at a dead end or dead exhausted… soon to be just  _ dead.  _

Brainz was there… he had chased this person all the way from the car, from the weapon foolishly stowed inside. His weapon was kept on him at all time now, he pointed it at the wheezing man pressing himself against the wall before him.

His frantic gasping breaths only accentuated his desperation.

“Alright Byran, I get you’re pissed _ \-  _ I  _ get  _ it! But that was just a  _ job,  _ that’s how I made a living. It wasn’t  **_personal!”_ **

This man told Byran the exact same thing before putting a bullet in his head. And now here he was repeating himself and vouching to keep a bullet out of his own head. 

“Where’s your boss?”

“What?” 

“ _ Pailurn.  _ The guy who  _ hired  _ you. Where is he?”

“Man I don’t  _ fucking know!  _ That was over  _ ten years ago!  _ I don’t work for him! I don’t even  _ do  _ jobs like that anymore, I’m shooting straight now! So were some of the others guys too before you hunted them  _ down!” _

Brainz just cycled his firearm… it was already locked and loaded and he just wasted a round. But the sound it made was worth it, it repeated his question and instilled a new level of panic in the man.

“I don’t know, I don’t know! I  _ really  _ don’t know! Look- I-im  _ SORRY!  _ You think I thought something like  _ this’d  _ happen?! I didn’t want you to  _ suffer!  _ **Please,** **_PLEASE_ ** don’t kill me! I have  _ kids _ now!” 

Whether he was telling the truth or not, just the fact that he threw out that last gambit to appeal to  _ Brainz  _ of all people… it just made the armed thug laugh. Brainz laughed his wicked laugh but lowered his gun and approached the man as his giggles subsided. The ex hitman didn’t act, perhaps in the hope that he saved himself. Brainz just patted him on the shoulder warmly and turned right back around, starting a merry little tune as a whistle. The moment the guy let out that sigh of relief, that assumption that Brainz spared him:  **he was riddled with bullets.** Brainz sprayed the man with automatic fire and watched him flop onto the floor: leaving a mosaic of blood splattered onto the wall behind. 

Even with the man motionless in his own growing pool of red, Brainz treated him to the same kind of kicks to his head he was given years ago. He didn’t seem satisfied when the body didn’t  _ twitch _ like he did, but it didn’t stop him from retrieving the unused bullet from the ground and putting it to use. He placed his gun barrel on the same part of the man’s head where his metal plate was and pulled the trigger.

Another one down… but he wasn’t satisfied, he wouldn’t be until he repaid his old friend. In the meantime though…  **_there were still *PLENTY* of people left._ ** In fact, why stop at the ones who failed to kill him on that fateful night? Why give them all the credit for ruining Byran’s life? There were  _ others  _ who did that long before… If it wasn’t for them, all of the circumstances wouldn’t have lined up like that. They were  _ ALL  _ guilty, they  _ ALL  _ deserved their comeuppance. 

“Fuck them, fuck them  _ all.” _

There is still so much work left to do.

  
  


But someone REFUSED.

A voice, distraught and angry dared to accost you.

“This is out of CONTROL! You’re a full blown  **_serial killer_ ** now! You have to  **STOP!”**

_ Don’t stop. _

_ NEVER stop. _

“You don’t understand, they are LOOKING for you! They are  _ onto  _ you and you just want to add to the number of bodies to  _ pin on you!” _

_ The lights are flashing. _

**RUN FASTER LITTLE BOY…**

_ Shrill sirens are blaring. _

**RUN FASTER, YOUNG CHILD.**

_ Fights, never ending. _

“They think that we’re  **_MONSTERS_ ** because of you! We have a purpose but you’re just an immoral  _ killing machine!” _

  
  


There was no escaping anger, it had taken every ounce of heartbreak and misery pumped into his life…  **and turned him into a monster.**

Police officers, retired or not, were singled out and put down. Anybody who was on shift on the night of Baitren’s death were slaughtered. Lawyers and prosecutors, all the people who fought so dearly to keep Byran in prison: Brainz ran one of them down with their own vehicle. He shifted the car back and forth, one repetition for each session they used to lock Byran up. They would be the only person who wasn’t ended by his bare hands… avoiding the strangulation and smashed windpipes. 

**ANOTHER BODY: SUSPECT OMEGA RESPONSIBLE**

**SUSPECT OMEGA CLAIMS** **_19th_ ** **VICTIM**

There were people that weren’t even associated with the law that Brainz came for… they were only the  _ juries  _ that had to sit through the case. They turned their thumbs down and condemned Byran all the less… they were  _ GUILTY.  _

**BUS BOMBING ATTRIBUTED TO SUSPECT OMEGA (DEADENDERS INVOLVEMENT?)**

“They think you’re our leader, they’re calling you ‘Suspect Omega’ you’ve taken everything that represents us and made it all about  **_you!”_ **

If he was representing the DeadEnders… then Brainz figured he ought to represent them properly. The symbols once graffitied on their crime scenes now found themselves tattooed onto his shoulders. Nobody was ever going to see them, but Brainz wanted them to be a part of him. He learned their meaning and meant to twist it just as he did the message of the group.

**OMEGA ‘LAST’**

**THETA ‘DEATH’**

They were now his markings, no longer belonging to the terrorists who coined them. When Brainz had fulfilled his vengeance, when he had ridded the infested earth of all the scum who tried him. He would have no more meaning and would kill himself. No matter how bad it became, no matter how far he would go… until the job was done, he would live. 

**_Omega Theta_ **

**The last death is *yours*.**

At the same time, everything he declared and did to himself were cries for action. By all means, he did not wish to fulfill his wishes with every fiber of his being. Too much of him still wished for this all to end and to finally and rightfully  _ DIE.  _ He invited everyone to stop him, he encouraged it by getting his largest tattoo yet on his chest. Right where his heart was:

**SHOOT THE STAR**

**ALL star must be shot to win prize, void if heart intact.**

Even then it was a compromise, when ‘ **PLEASE STOP ME’** was too direct and not nearly as cynical as his better half wanted. 

No more logic, no more sense of self: just a desire for harm. To take the boundless suffering inside and share it with others. Brainz had become so invested in his ruthless killings that they all blended together. To him, his violent acts were no longer significant: as reflected by the lack of boundaries in all his memories. It was an endless chain of death, Toriel would witness one human slain after another. Some cried for help, others for mercy, a few for god. 

**BUT NOBODY CAME**

Everything those soldiers said about him was  _ true.  _ But at the same time, they couldn’t have been any further from the terrible truth behind all his transgressions. Knowing was hell, it was the worst kind of hell imaginable for Toriel. Byran’s grief drove him completely insane,  **_rabid even._ ** There was no way in this demented hell that he could’ve meant  _ anything  _ that Brainz did. And Brainz… he was incapable of helping himself, driven to a point he couldn’t even  _ see  _ anyone trying to help him… rather a con or an act to try and take him down. At this point it would be easy to stop seeing them as one person. 

Byran: a beaten and bruised soul who tried his very best to keep his light up in the swarm of raging wind and suffocating storms.

Brainz: the product of the worst excesses of humanity. A weapon without an owner, incapable of judgment or restriction. Harming all that came in his way. He was only human by biology, no longer in every other aspect. 

She could’ve done this, falling into the company of everyone who ever knew the two different people. Toriel could’ve laid her own doubts and burning inquiries to rest, but she  **refused** to do that. What she was seeing right now, this whirlwind of fury and violence. It was neither the innocent soul Brainz used to be or the filthy blackened soul he was now. What Toriel saw and would continue to see until the end of time,  _ impossible  _ to ever be swayed by anything but her own thoughts again:  **was just the immense world of suffering from one traumatized little boy.**

That crying child she saw when she was first taken into this SOUL, sealed behind that door. He was not just a prisoner of this hell, he was the  _ warden  _ too. Trapped in a construct of his own creation, built out of his many cries for help. A temper tantrum that would never end. 

**Hatred…. Hatred…**

**The boogeyman who haunts nightmares.**

**_It’s all just a Bad Dreem,_ ** _ I want to wake up. _

**_STOP DOING THIS AND JUST WAKE UP._ **

**_“Go to hell Mr Rantz.”_ **

  
  


“I  _ AM  _ IN HELL! I’M IN MY OWN HELL! DON’T YOU SEE?!” 

…

His shout shattered the delicate silent tension stringing across the room like a spider web. The fever dream of bloodied corpses and pained faces came a hard stop. 

* * *

**> >>05/29/2006<<<**

**> >12:49 AM<<**

Brainz stood in the bedroom of one lonely and aged Cecelia Uvetzal. She had taken from her interrupted slumber, nothing but a nightgown.  _ He  _ had taken from his stockpile of weapons, one Steven’s Model 77e Shotgun. He woke her up and made up his mind on what he was going to do to her before he even broke into her home… She had felt panic, but only until she could recognize him through all the age and bitterness. 

“Suspect Omega…  _ Little Byran Rantz…  _ So this is the path we forced you to choose, I guess I should’ve known. If you can even imagine anymore, you’ve never completely left my mind. You’ve come to kill me.” 

She was scared… but she wasn’t screaming or begging for her life. Nothing like that, she knew what was going to happen and that nothing she could do would change it. Brainz should’ve expected she would act like this, the two faced snake was good at acting like she cared about him: she could just as well do the opposite. 

Brainz said nothing to her, he just narrowed his glare and held the weapon higher and closer to himself, preparing to fire it. It would’ve been over right here and now if he pulled the trigger… but he hesitated, letting her notice his lack of action and continue speaking. 

“When I took your case, your case to gather information against you… I didn’t hesitate, you know. I had no problem doing to someone what I did to you. I didn’t know anything about you other than you were ‘dangerous’ and that we didn’t want you to come out.”

She gave a joyless single chuckle and shook her head, disappointed at herself and the world she inhabited. 

“I know you won’t believe me in the slightest, but my intentions fell through when I first spoke to your aunt. Seeing her working herself so hard to save you, the face she made when I told her I wanted to help… I can still see it when I close my eyes even to this day… I wanted to quit everything and tell my bosses to just leave you alone…”

Cecelia sat down on her bed and sniffled, Brainz followed her movement with his gun, still remaining silent.

“I thought I couldn’t do it. I always  _ could’ve…  _ I was just afraid for myself, what would happen to me. I never questioned anything until you, I kept my head down and did my duty to whoever asked… but you had me doubting everything I’ve done.”

She looked to him with a resounding sadness.

“I wanted you to win, even as I struggled to fill out my dossier, I wanted so much to help you. To get you out of the system’s clutches before they made you into the monster they wanted….”

Too little too late. She shook her head again, still riding on the fact that Brainz wouldn’t act. He was completely stuck, as if she still had influence over his fate. A long lasting spell that never broke.

“I want you to know something: and if you don't trust anything else I’ve told you, let this be the exception… for your own sake.  **I don’t blame you** for what you are about to do. I have had this coming for a long time. I have tried to better my ways and help people after that case… but I learned too late that we live in a society that doesn’t believe in second chances. We don’t forgive, we see, we prosecute, we  _ demonize  _ to make everybody else feel safer. Anyway… I’m not going to try and dissuade you, and it’s not like I can stop you in the slightest, but instead-”

Brooding took to her face and tone, partially obscured by the darkness of the room. 

“- I’m going to warn you. You’re falling down a long and slippery slope right now, everything you are doing is only making you fall faster. I fear you won’t be able to stop yourself from hitting the bottom, hell. Hell is down there.”

That’s when Brainz spoke, years of pent up frustration: all set to blow at the audacity he witnessed. He swung his weapon and yelled a blood curdling yell.

“I  _ AM  _ IN HELL! I’M IN MY OWN HELL! DON’T YOU SEE?!”

He glared red hot daggers into her but found he couldn’t hold eye contact for very long, spinning around and growling his exasperated cry. 

“Don’t you say I’m going to hell- I’m already there…”

“Oh no, Byran: _ you’re  _ not going to hell, if there is a god: he’ll know it’s not your fault, he’ll look at us first.  _ We’re  _ going to hell. For what we’ve done to you.” 

Then came the last words she said to him, the last thing she would say on this earth.

“For what it’s worth,  **I’m sorry.”**

Nobody heard the shotgun firing, the police wouldn’t be here until much later: Brainz would be long gone by then. But with all the time he had after the smoke had cleared, Brainz stayed in that room until the sun began to climb from the edge of the world. He had to wallow in what he had done, the fruits of his death wishes. Never did he wish to pull the trigger more than he did now, but it ended up being the hardest thing he had done so far… he regretted it immediately as the blood soaked into the bedsheets. There was no going back, and he couldn’t make it right. But there was one thing he could still do. This was personal, it was his life: so he wanted to make sure nobody would dare confuse it as another mindless act of killing from the terrorists. So he dipped his fingers into the puddle of fresh blood and left his mark on the bedroom wall. 

**BRAINZ WASN’T HERE**

A blatant lie to displace the others, his responsibility. It wasn’t like it mattered either, the police were already after him. There were countless close calls with them, not to mention all the blood rushing evasions. He found it  _ funny,  _ the police’s involvement. How they couldn’t be bothered whenever Byran needed them but now that they were his enemy, there was seldom a time he could avoid them. They just didn’t understand that he was justified in every way, that  _ they  _ would’ve put these people down in due time. 

**_You are justified._ **

No matter what circumstance, Brainz  _ always  _ got away: leaving his message in some way or another. He was the boogeyman now, people grew to fear and to  _ despise  _ the inverted colored eyes. He never intended to live long enough to gain this notoriety, the plan was always to put himself down  _ after  _ he killed Pailurn. That betrayer became the  _ last  _ person on Brainz’s hit list in  **2012,** six years after Byran Rantz was killed, the height of his terrible reputation. The next  _ five  _ years however would go much differently. Brainz had become dormant at least in the sense of retribution and sightings. He drifted around and hid in the shadows, only coming out at night to scavenge like a rat. The attention on him never faded though, the last major occurrence he had with the authorities left them quite sore…  **involving an abandoned apartment building and explosives.** Not to mention all the fraudulent accusations for being the mistaken leader of the now defunct terrorist group. 

While they were no longer friendly to him, Brainz found allies or… they found  _ him.  _ Scumbags crawling out of their holes who looked up to him with messianic proportion. People who took his killings and inserted their own ideologies into them… hate crimes, religious extremism, raw anarchy. He became some kind of a legend to all the criminals who knew him. Brainz never agreed with any of them… but help was help and he took all the help he could get. That’s where the swastika on his neck came from.

Unfortunately for Toriel, with the raging force still chasing after her: she was running out of memories to flee into. She could feel the impending emptiness coming, the feeling of ‘sameness’ as Brainz was fast approaching his brief period underground. Compared to the rest of his life, this was just a brief yet bizarre period of intense suffering. There was nothing to gain or see from his perspective beneath the mountain, Toriel had already witnessed everything. With the humdrum of his ‘normal’ passed, there was only one more full and realized memory for Toriel to dwell in. The endless passage of the red hell came to an end, there was one final door waiting for her. The memory was still ‘fresh’ and it staved off all the corruption around it, anger could not enter. 

Toriel opened the door… to a dimly lit garage.

* * *

  
  


**MARCH 14** ~~**201X** ~~ **2017**

**12:12 AM**

Brainz opened the door of a black Chevy Impala 1996. The garage didn’t belong to him and neither did the car. He was just exploiting an invitation from a small time hustler named ‘Eddie’, a place to stay and lay low from the authorities: with the understanding that if they paid a visit that Brainz broke in here and Eddie was  _ not  _ harboring a terrorist. 

Nice gesture, nice guy… he almost fooled Brainz into trusting him. He would actually willfully put himself to sleep and wake up to the sound of sirens,  _ nice try.  _ Brainz was going to use Eddie’s assets to get himself to his hideout underneath the motel. (He was the only one who knew about it again, he had to sever his partnership with those people who visited with him… just how he severed their spines) Eddie offered him a place to lay low, and that’s what Brainz was  _ doing.  _ Even though he never asked to use the car and snuck the car keys when Eddie went to bed, Brainz had every intention to give the car  _ back.  _

It wasn’t too far of a drive before Brainz entered the highway with its green signs of ascending exit numbers. The premature morning was calm, the subtle hum of the vehicle’s working engine, the occasional reflection of another motorist’s head and tail lights on the sparsely populated vein. Just another paranoid filled day, nothing new.

**“Exit 196...Exit 197...Exit 197b….”**

Brainz tiredly murmured the reflective titles as he passed them, a bid to keep himself awake as he had been so for forty-two hours straight.

“ **198…** **_199…_ ** **… …”**

Brainz never finished. Suddenly, everything came to a dead halt. He and the car altogether were frozen in place. Just like that, he was counting up and then  **STOP.** Nothing, not even a sound. But why? 

Toriel didn’t care to…  _ care  _ anymore. She only investigated from her spot in the back of the car begrudgingly. This was the last memory she could squat in, the last ‘anything’ her consciousness could do before…  _ Why bother even trying to guess what was going to happen?  _ She was probably going to be consumed by the rage again when she would get tossed out of this one… so what was the reason for this abrupt end? 

Nothing happened, Brainz had just approached his exit marked by the  _ sign _ that was illuminated by his headlights. There was nothing out of the normal except…

‘ **_What… Impossible!_ ** **That is not** **_possible!_ ** **What am I looking at?!’**

What were Toriel and Brainz looking at? Somebody had vandalized the road sign… and painted the sigil of the monster kingdom across its entire green canvas.  _ That’s  _ what stopped him.

‘ **_Who did THIS now?!’_ **

Toriel knew damn well who did, she was in the car with perhaps the only human who the deltarune had a profound effect on. When Toriel was done basking in the world of apprehension, the memory resumed itself… but it would soon be less that and more that something entirely different took its place. It was impossible at this point to tell what was real or hallucination. If the deltarune really existed or not.

All the lights of the world went out, faded into abyss. The deltarune was now a  _ beacon,  _ lighting up only what applied to Brainz now… his original destination was abandoned and he kept driving forward. His posture straightened and his expression went completely blank, the sighting of the sigil had put him into some kind of  _ trance. _ He wasn’t even  _ blinking  _ anymore and Toriel could see from his rearview mirror that his ‘normal’ eye had turned the same kind of hellish red as the other one. 

Brainz kept driving, the light from the passed rune started to fade from behind: setting him off into darkness… until  _ ANOTHER  _ deltarune lit up from ahead. Another exit sign had been vandalized in the same manner, except this rune was much smaller and looked  _ newer _ because the paint was still dripping. It beckoned him like a moth to the brilliant light it was emitting. 

**EXIT 201**

**MT EBOTT NATIONAL PARK**

He was going to make this turn, it was never an accident. There was just one thing keeping him from it, a small building in the middle of the four laned highway.

**The tollbooth.**

Brainz only slowed down and stopped the vehicle to avoid hitting the others that had arrived before him, one by one they were let through the narrow gaps in the structure. The wait was unbearable for Toriel, out of  _ all  _ waiting she was forced to do in this fucked up adventure. THIS was the worst. Closer and closer under the lights, Brainz reacted to  _ nothing:  _ just pulling his borrowed car up like a robot following commands until he finally reached the little gate that kept him from proceeding. 

“75 cents.” 

That’s what he heard from the woman sitting in the little booth beside him. He hadn’t the fare for passage, but that was going to become the least of his concerns if he started feeling them again. Brainz just turned and looked at the woman, wearing his black and red hoodie and a large  _ deranged  _ grin baring his silver tooth. The woman… she did not have to look at the list of faces on the ‘WANTED’ poster taped to the window.  _ Everybody  _ knew this face. The moment she realized who it was smiling at her, the moment Brainz saw the terror flaring into her eyes… he stepped on the gas and busted through the barrier. 

What happened next was all a blur to Toriel, a mish mash of sounds and sensations she couldn’t keep up with. The roar of the vehicles engine as it was pushed until it passed out, starved of gasoline, the  _ crash  _ just two miles away from the mountain, the explosion, the belongings, the running, the sirens, the flashing lights, the  _ dogs,  _ the exhaustion, the pain, the blood, the  **_end…_ ** The  _ falling,  _ the  _ yellow stars,  _ the  _ warmness…  _ **The goat monster.**

This was never an accident, Brainz did this on purpose. His actions were all predetermined the moment he saw the deltarunes. This was all  **_connected,_ ** somebody had orchestrated all of these things to happen. But HOW??? 

The deltarunes followed Brainz down, they were everywhere. In fact, they were  _ always  _ there. In a flash of white light, Toriel was jerked back and forth to snippets of past memories just to that winged circle.  **_Scrawled onto the walls of Byran’s death row cell, doodled onto the papers of his records, finger painted on the walls._ ** **BRANDED ONTO HIS BACK.**

  
  
  


She saw him  _ do it.  _ Brainz was in the same trance-like state when he did it, he was back inside of his shelter: sitting inside of an unused bathroom with a red hot charcoal grill burning away. He had removed his shirt and jacket, revealing his bare upper torso and all the scars and tattoos. 

The rune had been painted onto the tiles like a mural of sorts. Brainz was on the floor bending and hammering something, only interrupting himself to stoke the flames. He eventually brought to the grill an amalgamation of metal coathangers that he had teased into the shape he wanted. He placed them down and kept them there until they were just as red and hot as the grill itself. Toriel watched him carefully pick the thing up with barbeque tongs… place it squarely on the floor and then lower  _ himself  _ onto it.Toriel could hear the sickening sizzling of Brainz’s own flesh being mutilated, the pain was indescribable yet he did not even  _ flinch  _ or yell out. Brainz just lay there until the sound subsided. The branding on his back, he did it to  _ himself  _ as an act of  **_penance._ **

‘ _ Penance for WHAT?! What did he DO?? How does he KNOW about this RUNE?’ _

Toriel desperately clawed at the very rune she wore, pushed to her very end of sanity by what she was seeing. She was interrupted by Brainz who suddenly gave this terrible yell, he sat up and howled with pain, scrambling to  _ peel  _ the deformed metal sticking to his melting skin. The deformed mold was dropped to the floor, Brainz ran out from the room and left Toriel behind to succumb to the insanity. All she could think of doing was closing her ears and screaming. The burning sensation lingered on her, it forced her to feel the same pain she inflicted on him with her own flames, worse than anything the electric chair could’ve done to him. As the howls turned into maddened laughter, Toriel screamed some more. She hid from it all until everything faded away.

When she opened her eyes again, the only thing Toriel could see was the glowing deltarune still sitting on the floor… it was so much more than a mass of heated and misshapen coat hangers though. When she wasn’t looking, the deltarune had become the inscription on the large door that formed out from the tile floor. With  _ nothing else  _ but  **_anger_ ** waiting for her and surrounding the encapsulating darkness: Toriel opened the door and fell inside.

  
  


The door did not lead to anywhere  _ far,  _ it had not even taken Toriel out from the shelter. She had merely been brought to another room, the  _ workshop.  _ Everything was present from before except for the machine gun… but then came in Brainz who was holding it in his arms and placed it onto the table. No, wait… It wasn’t Brainz, it was  _ Byran.  _ His eyes were both green even though the one was defunct. He was also still young, not burdened by age.

**[BR - 26]**

This place had never been like this before, his safe haven was saturated with anxiety. The feeling of absolute apprehension was its most pure in this place. Toriel could feel every bit of it radiating off of the young man. Byran was shaking quite dramatically, it looked like he was terrified beyond help. The stench of tobacco filled the shelter, Byran had been smoking nonstop for an undisclosed period of time, he had a cigarette in his mouth even now. Byran tinkered with the large weapon he brought.

(It was an M60 Light Machine gun, the biggest weapon he could and ever got his hands on) 

A map of the [ **EBOTT NATIONAL PARK 1997]** looked over the workbench, overly illuminated by all the lamps pointed at it. Byran would glance at it many times as he checked each and every piece of equipment he had gathered here. All of the RED markings added to the map practically spoke to Toriel.

**ENTRY POINT**

**MEETING LOCATION**

**ESCAPE ROAD?**

**TRAP 1**

**TRAP 2**

***BOMB***

She didn’t notice from before but in one corner of the large map, ‘Uncle Brainz’ was holding his niece's hand. Byran had the drawing clipped to the map… next to a piece of notebook paper with:  **MARCH 19 12:50 AM** scribbled into it. There was a watch made into a makeshift clock taped to the board. It was 12:02now. 

  
  


After Byran finished his  stalling  inspections, he stepped back and did the hardest swallow before talking to himself.

“Well… here we  _ go  _ I guess.” 

Byran walked over to the clothing mannequin. It was wearing an entire suit of anti riot body armor, reinforced with an additional layer of kevlar taped up and sewed with many pouches and straps for ammunition. The suit was completed with a bulletproof ‘Spetsnaz’ helmet with face shield. Questioning how he acquired  _ these  _ things was pretty low on the priorities. He approached the armor and disrobed himself, replacing his immediate clothing with all black denim. It took him a lot longer to put on all the armor… he did not take the helmet yet. Byran was already feeling encumbered from all the protection, it was only going to increase as he started equipping himself with all the ammunition he prepared. 

  * Seven boxes filled with one hundred bullets each for the M60. 
  * Pineapple hand grenades clipped to his belt.
  * An M16a2 Assault rifle with an attached M203 Grenade launcher fastened onto his back.
  * Five STANAG 30 round Ar-15 magazines.
  * Three 40mm High Explosive grenade rounds.



Equipping himself was made difficult as the armor restricted his movement and already began to heat him up, Byran was already sweating before this.

Toriel had to assume the worst, it was hard not to when the only thing she could predict was that Byran was fixing to start a massacre. Whatever he was about to do… it must’ve been what put him on death row. 

The last bit of ‘preparation’ Byran did was the scariest for Toriel. Those damn green pills of his, Byran emptied out the bottle and took so much more of them than Toriel had ever seen him do before. Byran then unfolded a tissue sitting on the workbench, it had a small amount of this fine white powder in it… it looked like sugar or flour to Toriel but she just knew it  _ wasn’t.  _ Byran brought the substance to his nose and inhaled it, wincing and hacking as it invaded his sinuses. Lastly, there was the syringe filled with the brownish yellow liquid: Byran picked it up and pulled on the collar of his armor to reveal his neck. Whatever it was, it was the most difficult thing for him to do, he put it up to his neck and backed down numerous times before just violently jabbing it in and pushing on the plunger.

He huffed painfully and nodded as he looked at the empty needle.

“That’s it, I’m dead. I’m gone in an hour.”

A nervous and frantic giggle left him quivering, but he did not further delay himself.

  
  


The M60 was grabbed and so was the helmet. Byran hobbled out of the room, armor and gear shifting and clunking. He came back for his drawing though. The battery bank keeping the lights on in the shelter was turned off and the shotgun perched on a chair facing the door was loaded and armed behind him. Byran shut the reinforced metal door behind him and closed the padlock he had hanging off the handle. It was clear that he had absolutely no intention of ever returning to this place, the stinging doubt in his head prevented him from chucking the keys though… 

He emerged from the depths of the motel into the waning moonlight. A van that did not belong to him was waiting eagerly in the parking lot, he wouldn’t fit in a normal sized car and even here it was a struggle to get into the driver’s seat. The weapon and helmet had to share the passenger’s seat. The vehicle rumbled as it came to life, Byran was off, onto the highway: inbound for the mountain. The familiar road signs he passed were clean yet Byran was dead silent on the drive… almost like he had fallen to the trance again, but no… after a handful of minutes, there was a young voice in the back of the van.

“What’re you doing, Uncle?”

He almost swerved the vehicle from how he whipped around from the surprise, there was nobody there but Byran accosted the empty space.

“ _ What’re you doing here?!  _ This is NO place for a little girl! I’m taking care of it!” 

The van started to degrade, it was like a red film was developing over everything. Byran’s ears were ringing painfully and he felt like he was on fire inside of his suit… gravity felt like it had given up on him, if it wasn’t for all the armor he would’ve floated out the van’s magical windows into the ocean outside. 

“It’s fine, I’m fine it’s just the dream residue. I’m  _ FINE  _ okay?!” 

Toriel saw stars, she saw shapes melting and buildings growing out of the fungus in Byran’s eyes. There was an interruption of lucid constitution, it took every bit of the man’s dwindling willpower to keep the vehicle on the jelly road. 

“Oh  _ Byran,  _ I should’ve known this is how you were going to treat me.”

He and Toriel both gasped in horror… they recognized the shrill voice immediately. 

“ _ MA?!  _ What do you  _ want!?” _

  
  


“I want to watch you fail, that’s all I’ve ever wanted from you… you’re not going to get what you want. You know it- you would never amount to anything but this.”

“SHUT UP!  **_SHUT UP!”_ **

His grasp on reality was losing to the flood of poison entering his bloodstream. Byran would spend the rest of the drive screaming at the army of voices that ridiculed him. He could feel everyone outside laughing at him, finding their places to watch what he was going to do. The ants had crawled under his skin and he couldn’t scratch them because of the armor. The omniscient drum was pounding faster and showed no signs of relenting… it only increased the tempo of its pulse. 

**_EXIT 201 for your choice. THE FUCKING EXIT._ **

He could barely stay on the road when the sign yelled at him in its multicolored rant. Byran started striking his own face, using pain to stave off the warping. 

“It’s EBOTT valley… with a two T 2 to be 2.  _ EBIO-UGHt.” _

Byran struggled to make his lips move for words, his teeth were chattering and he lost control of his one eye, it twitched without him. It was just a little further, he was  _ so close.  _ The town was ready to take him, the bushes were as tall as the houses… and then they became taller. Taller and taller, but never reaching for the diffusing  _ sky. _ The houses were sinking, the land beneath was turning into tissue and ripping with the strength of one million red oxen.

“No no no… don’t do it… Don’t do it!”

He pushed the gas pedal through to China, but it was too late, the black road of rubber was no match for the weight of human sin. It gave out from under him and Byran screamed on the way down, the heat was intense getting more unbearable and the RED was everywhere. All the houses turned to flames, the mountain erupted into fire.

“I’m in HELL!  **_NO! NO NO NO NOOO!”_ **

He screamed and thrashed around his dissolving vehicle, he never saw it coming: hell had opened up and swallowed him whole before he had a chance. There was no way he was killing Charles now… wait that’s it! He was going to kill Charles, Charles was going to  _ be  _ there! Maybe there was still time! 

Hurry hurry  **_HURRY UP!_ **

Byran had no time at all to free himself from the plastic arm, he saved his weapon and put on his helmet to keep hell from burning him alive. The ground splintered and shattered under his thunderous footsteps, there was no going back from this: he would stay here forever and ever once the job was done. He could still DO this.

The drumming was frantic, the pace was inhuman… he wouldn’t be able to hold out for much longer. He just had to find his old partner, waiting with his cronies for someone who didn’t exist. They came for the M60, he was going to GIVE IT to them. He just had to FIND them! Where were they?! Why were they hiding?! 

“I can’t see  _ anything!  _ I can’t close my eyes! It’s done!” 

He felt like falling into the soured spiral of the world, the heat and weight were getting to him while his heart spat green and blue  _ fire.  _ His hands were ready to fall off and explode onto his metal feet… but  _ then:  _ he saw the  _ wings  _ for the first time. 

Someone had fallen into hell too, it was an  _ angel  _ shrouded in white. It was beautiful… it dared to fight this evil landscape with its presence. Byran was taken from his own world of problems and pulled in by this reverence he felt for the angel. Immediately, he stumbled for it: he just had to get closer. Then came the  **_demons…_ ** Byran  _ saw _ them come from the crevices, they were  _ angry  _ with the angel and started to  _ attack  _ it!

“ **_NO! STOP!”_ **

He tried to call out, to make them stop but they wouldn’t listen to him. They struck the angel and pushed them to ground, surrounding it and snuffing its aura out with their outright evil. He couldn’t bear to watch this any longer, they wouldn’t  **_STOP_ ** and the angel couldn’t fight  _ back.  _ It wasn’t  _ right,  _ it wasn’t  _ FAIR.  _ Why were they doing this to a defenseless soul?  _ Stop!  _ **_STOP._ **

“ **_LEAVE HIM_ ** **_ALOOONE!”_ **

With a blood curdling warcry, Byran opened fire on the demons. Most of them fell to the roaring hatred from the M60 but the cowardly scant few  _ scattered  _ as their compatriots were cut down. There was no telling what Byran had just begun, but it didn’t matter right now. He fired until they were all gone and then rushed over to help the fallen angel. 

“Hurry! Come with me! They’re going to come back! You can’t be here! Quick!” 

The angel was still stunned and on the ground, it looked to him and he could see the confusion and terror in its childlike face. With hellfire coming down around them and the sirens screaming for backup, it was about to get so much worse.

“Come  _ ON!  _ They’re  _ COMING!  _ GET UP!!” 

He outstretched a hand and tried to pull the angel up to their bare feet, he couldn’t get them to move. Byran yelled for them one more time, begging for it to help itself.

“ _ Come OOON! PLEASE!”  _

**And it spoke to him…**

“Uncle Brainz?....” 

When he heard that, he could see his children in its face, calling back to him… and his mission became nothing more than saving this soul. 

It was far too late to run, the shrill song of the reinforcements had finally arrived. A whole new type of demons… painted in blue and wearing gold shields arrived inside their blue and red salamanders. They wanted to KILL the angel, the  _ bastards.  _ All the terror Byran felt on this night, turned to straight  _ rage  _ when he saw them. They were  _ NOT  _ going to win, he was  _ NOT  _ going to let them. Byran decisively stood between them and the angel: he dropped the mostly spent box of ammo from his gun and went to load the second one. Even in his state, his finesse with his weapon was untouched and by the time the first demon emerged from their salamander: Byran pushed the bolt forward and was ready for battle. 

“COME AND  _ GET IT  _ YOU  **_WORMS!_ ** **”**

The first wave of them fell in an instant, they hadn’t even the chance to fight back. The second wave died with their salamanders. The armored scales on their monsters could not protect them from Byran’s armor piercing ammunition. As he madly fired into the wall of dead and arriving beasts, he yelled for the angel to  _ RUN,  _ to leave him to hold off the growing horde of blue and gold demons. The angel stayed put though, it would  _ not  _ leave him no matter how loudly he yelled.

“ **_GOOOO!_ ** **GET OUT OF** **_HERE!_ ** **I CAN’T HOLD THEM OFF FOREVER!”**

It wanted  _ him  _ to run away with it, but he  **_REFUSED_ ** if he did that, the demons would kill them both, it was already too late for him as the lethal doses of drugs were tearing his heart apart, but he could SAVE the angel. It just had to  _ LEAVE  _ him!    
  


The amount of demons became staggering even though he cut down so many of them, they started arriving in bigger and much tougher  _ basilisks  _ that absorbed his strikes. Dragons took to the sky and tried to stun him with the immense glow from their unholy fires. The demons attacked him from everywhere, he could  _ feel  _ their bullets beginning to eat him, his armor was falling from all the damage and he was beginning to feel the projectiles digging into his own flesh. His hands became soaked with blood, handling the weapons became harder and harder… he eventually couldn’t use the M60 anymore and had to go to his backup gun which even then was nearly impossible to handle or aim.

It came that Byran couldn’t even talk or yell at the angel anymore, he couldn’t tell it was there. He couldn’t reload his weapons, he couldn’t move his body. The drumming had become a constant and ear splitting him and then… it  **stopped.** One moment, he saw the wall of demons coming for him… the next: everything went black. 

There was one final act of defiance, a brilliant flash of heavenly light. He saw the angel one more time. The demons were not in sight, they were both somewhere darker and smaller than the entirety of hell. The angel laid him down on the cold floor and brought the drumming back with a touch to Byran’s heart. Its light was fading and its force was weakening… it showed him the winged circle one more time… before disappearing forever. 

The angel saved his life... at the cost of its. 

Byran was 26 years old.

Adre would have been 7

**03[AR-7: BR-26]19**

**1997**

[The beginning...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNOeYPF05GY)

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There, now you know about Brainz: happy?   
> Now you can sit down and die just like he did, and feel all the empathy you want. 
> 
> I'll let you have your thoughts for now, but the end is coming. The burning flare of determination is finally going out, you'll go dark with it.   
> All things considered, we had some fun.


	21. 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What?   
> What do you think you’re doing?  
> We’re done here. Remember how nothing mattered straight from the beginning? That’s not going to change, especially now.  
> Wait, where are you going? 

The end was here, the final glimmer of light had faded and there was no more warmth or cold to seep in from its absence. No further event showed its ugly circumstances and no demons came to play. This was it, the absolute center of the human’s soul: the last bastion of life: the farthest from the impending nothingness… finally succumbing to it. Like it should’ve: it lasted a while after Brainz fell, it lasted way longer than that, it lived for a  **_long_ ** time. It’s own death was prolonged by the immense abundance and concentration of determination it produced, everything was soaked in RED to keep out the BLACK. The deltarune was the final thing to go, it burned into her eyes: mocking her. How suitable was it that Toriel had nothing left to see at the same time nothing more was left to be seen.

She could feel herself ‘going’, at the same time it was what she couldn’t feel that started to grow. 

Here, in this final juncture of brain blasting cognizance: did Toriel finally begin to fade and become the same nothingness that surrounded her, her conscience becoming as formless and empty as the scant portion of dust spread around the world that used to be her. How convenient she had just the time to witness everything, and what a perfect place for it all to stop. How  _ apt,  _ how  _ appropriate,  _ how  _ tragic,  _ how  **_cruel._ ** So damned cruel, how could the world outside condone such gratuitous misery?

Two lifetimes of cruelty unabridged, both converging and influencing the other and both lacking the freedom of choice. Toriel would’ve laughed if she wasn’t mostly gone, she would’ve cried if she was still whole, perhaps she would’ve hit herself for not seeing this coming if she could still feel her body. How  _ funny  _ though, all this secondhand agony for  _ nothing.  _ She knew from the beginning that nothing she did would matter, but here she was feeling unprepared for that.

Her punishment was finished and it was finally time to go. The last thing that would burn and snuff itself in her mind would be wondering how much of this all could’ve been avoided if Brainz had gotten the kindness he deserved, if she herself had given it to him instead of falling into the same category of people who betrayed him.

At  _ last,  _ Toriel could close her eyes and relax: it was over. 

…

**But she didn’t.**

Every part of Toriel was gone, no longer supported by the residual determination from Brainz: she had nothing making her  _ exist,  _ except for the burning thought-  _ nay,  _ **_desire_ ** to see a better outcome for him. An outcome with a smarter,  **_wiser_ ** monster who would actually  _ help  _ him.

Toriel had her question, perhaps the truest thought she’d ever had, and she  _ wanted _ it to be answered. It wasn’t going anywhere until it received an answer and somehow… she stayed put with it. She started to feel  **_cold,_ ** as in actually having sensations again. 

She just couldn’t stop thinking about it, sure by the time Brainz fell down his life was already thoroughly ruined… but Toriel learned the hard way not to give up on him. It wouldn’t stop the fact he was followed shortly after but… what if she found a  _ way  _ somehow? To make him of all humans the first ‘child’ she actually helped. 

The negative space took unkindly to her presence, it wanted to reclaim her just like everything else  **but Toriel refused.** She couldn’t go out, not with this tiny flame inside of her starting to grow. 

The  _ soldiers…  _ that was also something she had such strong feelings about, not so much them but the  _ top  _ of their command at the feet of their corrupted and illegitimate  **_“captain.”_ ** If anyone reminded Toriel she could  _ hate  _ it would be HIM, nobody came close to how much she despised Pailurn and agreed with every bad feeling Brainz had for the two faced bastard. He was responsible for the collective suffering of not  _ one  _ family, but  **_two…_ ** not to mention everyone else who fell because of his actions! If she ever had the misfortune of meeting him again, it’d take all of her willpower and  _ more  _ not to set him ablaze. What Toriel did to him during that horrible frenzy- it felt  _ JUSTIFIED.  _

Toriel clenched a fist and  _ remembered  _ holding that soul and grinding it against the barrier, she remembered how  **_CATHARTIC_ ** it felt even thought it was primal and valkyrian. Brainz never even knew that the sole person he was hunting was trapped with him, what would happen if she  _ TOLD  _ him? What would he do?

There was  _ too much  _ to consider, too many worlds of possibility:  _ all  _ of them Toriel could assume would be BETTER than this one. Outcomes without so much wanton  _ death _ and deadly misunderstandings. Just a way to take this horrible reality, to  _ take it all BACK.  _

The fire spread throughout her entire form, it burned like nothing else. Toriel was too  ~~ focused, driven,  ~~ **_DETERMINED._ ** To notice or even  _ care.  _

“This… can  _ not  _ be how this  **_ends._ ** I… can  **_not_ ** let it.” 

Toriel  _ could  _ feel the boundless grip of death pulling on her from every side and angle of her being but she could also feel it  _ failing.  _ She was  **_fighting it,_ ** the sensation almost intoxicated her, it was so potent. She did not  _ want  _ to die and what she wanted was something absolutely impossible to achieve… but Toriel refused to accept it: the same thing keeping her going was convincing her otherwise.

The searing sensation coming from her core kept growing, Toriel felt like she was going to  _ burst  _ from it. She felt like everything in her life had led up to this and she just could  _ not  _ let it just be for  **_“nothing”_ **

She yelled, she fought tooth and nail: Toriel put so much of herself into this struggle and she couldn’t even tell what she was  _ doing _ but it was  **_intense._ ** She looked down at herself, her form giving and taking in and out from existence. The sensations became indescribable, they pushed her into a mania. The same kind of feeling she could  _ recognize  _ that allowed Byran to survive his grave injuries and save himself- but she could do so much  _ MORE _ than for herself, she could save  _ HIM  _ and  _ ALL SHE HAD TO DO WAS- _

* * *

**3 1 4**

Toriel  ~~ Dreemurr ~~ awoke with a lurch, the excitement she felt quickly subsided when she recognized the soft embrace of her large bed. She let her head touch back down on her flattened pillows… just another  _ crazy  _ dreem. Toriel’s slumber had been rough for a small while now, disrupted by a slew of incredibly bizarre dreams that seemingly came from nowhere… at least not from  _ her  _ rigid and boring schedule. Speaking of which though, it was high time to get going for another day of her comfortable solitude… After all, she already couldn’t recall half of the things she dreamt, so it was probably nothing to worry herself with.

Toriel dressed and fixed herself up, made her bed for tonight, and walked out her bedroom door. 

  
  


**\--:--:--**

**00:00:00**

**48:00:00**

**Standby…**

[NEW FILE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDtDKuOGE40)

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this chapter causes 'that' kind of dismay in you,  
> Trust me. 
> 
> I wouldn't 'dreem' of doing that to everyone.


	22. 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unbridled Hospitality

Another day, another choice of what brand of monotony to try today. The white, fluffy monster looked over the itinerary over her breakfast. Her unseen friend wasn’t due for a visit to the door today, so that was out of the question. It had been two days since she deep cleaned her entire house _ ,  _ that’s plenty of time for it to get filthy right? The library could do with some re-re-reorganizing: Alphabetical order was so last week, how about in order of the number of times Toriel reread each book? That sounded pretty good. Yesiree,  _ busy busy  _ day: Toriel just might not have had the time to  _ do  _ all these things today. It was no bother though: there was always tomorrow and the next day, the one after  _ that,  _ the  _ next  _ next day and so on… 

She looked out of her window and lit up at the sight of a few leaves that had broken free from their neat formations on the ground… it looked like she was going to have to rake  _ all  _ the leaves  _ all  _ over again, just for good measures of course! It had been a whopping  _ three _ days since the last time, so she was falling behind schedule if anything. Toriel finished her meal and grabbed her rake. 

While she was working on undoing all of the piles, Toriel couldn’t help but let herself think about that dream she had. It really  _ was  _ strange, the most unusual one she had of all. Even though she could not remember most of it now, it did not leave her thoughts. She could tell it was  _ different  _ because it lacked all the predictability her ‘normal’ dreams had when she actually had any. Her ‘lifestyle’ had gotten to the point that even her dreams ran out of material to create with, so they would bring her back to the same places, the same things, and rarely the same  _ people. This  _ one though took her somewhere  _ else,  _ somewhere…  **_Red._ **

“I remember-”

She thought to herself in between rakes. 

“-feeling  _ afraid.” _

The thought occupied her for the entire chore, Toriel even found herself spacing out when the job was done: this was just such an intriguing thing to think about. She’d almost forgotten about the books or the cleaning.

“I was afraid of something, but I cannot remember  _ whom.” _

Her efforts deduced that it was by no means a pleasant dream, it was in fact far from one. While she could not discern anything lucid about it, Toriel could recall a blur of emotions from it: they were  _ strong.  _ This was a full blown nightmare she withstood, that much was actually obvious from when she woke up feeling less rejuvenation from the lower quality slumber. There really wasn’t anything to gain from dwelling on this so much, but it gave her something  _ new  _ to do and for that: Toriel could’ve spent the rest of the day just thinking about it. She did so, more or less but still accomplished all of her tasks for the day: retiring to her bed while twiddling her thumbs and staring wide eyed at her ceiling. Toriel almost delayed her bedtime with her excited mind! 

…

It wouldn’t be  _ her  _ that disrupted her own sleep though, it had barely been two hours since she closed her eyes that they would shoot right back open. Her instincts had jostled her awake, the unique sensation that jolted through her like a bolt of lightning shared its irrefutable message:  **a human had fallen down.**

She was fully dressed and out the door within the same minute she woke up. 

  
  


Toriel glided through the ruins, feeling too anxious to be in any way  _ groggy.  _ Of  _ all  _ the times the previous ones fell, this one had to be the worst. Not only did it take her the longest time to get up and head for the hole, but this dreadful time was when that dreadful  _ flower _ liked to lurk! It could harass and harm the human before she even made it halfway! She nearly stumbled on her own puzzles and benign traps, Toriel was in such a hurry. She felt peculiar again on the way, all this running felt familiar. She did a whole lot of it in her dream.

Almost there, Toriel barreled through the last set of doors bearing the rune she wore and-  _ Oh no:  _ she was too late, she could  _ hear _ that miserable creature  _ talking  _ to the human! 

“-You poor thing, you look like you just had your- hey, wait a minute. You’re not-.”

When she finally made it, Toriel did not allow the malicious flower to continue its sick game any further, she ousted it with a swift ball of fire: all the care taken to avoid harming the human… who was laying motionless in the field of unassuming flowers. Toriel started her introduction by  _ apologizing  _ for being so late, but she would not get passed so much as “Sorry” when she gasped in horror. 

Toriel saw the  _ blood,  _ it was impossible not to see the bright scarlet liquid: turning all the petals near the downed form a similar color as it seeped from the myriad of inflicted wounds. Any further observations had to wait, Toriel already rushed over to the human’s aid: everything else discerned was too obvious to have to focus on. It was a human male and an  _ older  _ one at that, judging by the size and all the wrinkles on his face, this could’ve been the  _ oldest _ one that had ever fallen down here. He and his clothes were positively filthy too, not minding the blood… but that didn’t matter right now. Was he still even alive? Toriel couldn’t sense the typical aura a living being would emit.

Toriel grasped a part of the man that wasn’t covered in blood to get a direct check on him, he  _ was _ still alive: but  _ barely  _ at that. His life force was terribly weak and hard to detect, further receding with every passing second. Immediately the monster pulled all of her magic into healing the damaged human. Try as she might though, even with her mastery in restorative magics: Toriel could not improve the human’s condition: all she could manage was keeping it from degrading any further. She tried and tried but she couldn’t, not here and not when she couldn’t focus from the anxiety.  **_Home_ ** though… She had remedies and treatments that’d aid her for this difficult task. 

The human was gently lifted up and lay into Toriel’s arms to be rushed back to her home. Despair took a tight hold of the monster as she grabbed a hold of the human. She had never seen anybody in this dire of a condition before, and she immediately thought of the derisive flower. Did  _ it  _ inflict all these injuries? It was a miserable little thing but Toriel had  _ never  _ seen this degree of cruelty from it before… but then she finally became perceptive to a whole family of  **_sounds_ ** coming from aloft: the  _ surface.  _

She could hear voices, many of them just beyond the hole… they sounded agitated, some even  _ panicked,  _ **_angry_ ** for the most part.

“What the  **_fuck?!_ ** _ ” _

“Where did he  **_GO?!_ ** _ ” _

“H-he’s  _ gone!”  _

There were plenty more things being said but they were all drowned out by this  **_rumbling_ ** noise that Toriel could not only  _ hear  _ but she could  _ feel  _ it vibrating the ground she stood upon. Somehow… she just knew the flower was not responsible for this. Toriel was further convinced of this when she caught a glimpse at a possession that slipped from the human’s grip when she picked him up: it was a  _ gun.  _ Her knowledge on the horrible tools was limited, but she knew well enough to know that she was looking at a firearm… There were two of them scattered around the fall site alongside a muddy backpack that had become separated from its owner.

Toriel stuttered for a moment, overwhelmed with conflicting thoughts of what she should’ve done: ultimately she would leave this place in the same damned hurry she came to it in: the life in her hands took direct priority. The sounds, the weapons, and what could very much have been: the  **_additional humans falling down_ ** just had to wait.

Her focus saw even more impairment as her rampant curiosities ran amuck inside of her, countless wonders to this human’s circumstances paired with one further pressing issue, something completely out of the ordinary. Toriel could not avoid coming into contact with all the still radiating blood soaking into the human’s clothes: she was not going to mind being soiled by it as well… but it did more than that to her. Touching the red liquid bestowed upon her a stinging sensation that would persist as long as it remained  _ on  _ her. She had experience with human injury before and saw her share of blood, but  _ this  _ was completely outside of her knowledge. Toriel had never dealt with something as passively  _ hostile  _ like this before. Everything about this strange man was an enigma… maybe that crazy dream was a premonition, a warning for things to come. Toriel knew that this was going to be nothing like any of her previous ‘children’. 

It felt like an entire nest of angry bees had stung her by the time she returned home, but Toriel would not address her own discomfort until she brought the human to a stable condition. That process itself took longer than anticipated and strained Toriel to the edge of her capabilities. Even with her healing items at hand, Toriel had to focus and address each wound one by one all while maintaining the overall support on the human’s health… It was a long and tiring feat. The greatest sense of relief came over her when she could no longer feel his life dwindling in a check: it was still rather weak but the immediate danger was gone: she managed to save him despite all the difficulties provided. 

Toriel was thoroughly uncomfortable when she concluded her therapy on the human, the stinging blood had soaked into her clothes and seeped onto her fur. She would not be able to relieve herself of the nasty sensation until she completely disrobed and bathed herself. The pain made Toriel wonder if the same thing was occurring to the  _ human,  _ she had no way of knowing except for waiting for him to regain consciousness and inquiring with him. But that could mean I would be in pain for this entire time… Toriel could not take that chance, she refused to sit here and do nothing in that regard. She couldn’t have had consent and this human could’ve been deeply upset with what she did, but that would be just fine for her if it meant he wouldn’t be suffering. She ended up removing his outer layer of clothing, leaving the undershirt and shorts as a middle ground: every part of the human that retained some of the stinging red was gently cleaned dabbed with a damp cloth. 

Two hours after Toriel had met this human was she able to put him to rest in the guest bed, pulling and tucking the covers over him for warmth and comfort. One half hour of silently sitting at his bedside watching and checking his vitals went by before Toriel made herself leave and clean  _ herself  _ up. Even then she would double back and peek her head in the door a couple times, she just had to be  _ that _ sure. 

And after she was all done: as clean as she could be, her’s and the human’s clothes hanging and drying, came the waiting. Not the waiting that she was used to, but the kind that had her pacing back and forth nervously and pulling on her ears. Waiting for the human to wake up, to finally figure out what had happened… 

Needless to say, it was unbearable. Toriel was simply unable to sit still in the midst of all this mystery. Nothing was able to calm her down while she waited… except, well: there  _ was _ the matter of the abandoned possessions back at the hole. The monster was reminded of these things as she looked over to the small pile of miscellaneous things she pulled from the human’s pockets. 

Tiny green capsules, a dubious syringe filled with even greener liquid, a sharp piece of square metal, a strange piece of shaped brass, and a beaten wallet that Toriel had the respect not to look into. These things only further aroused her anxiety and curiosity, but they hadn’t the same impact on her as the  **_weapons_ ** back at the hole, regardless of what this human was doing: they couldn’t amount to anything but  **_bad news._ ** She had no desire to retrieve them, to bring such horrible things into her home… but at the same time, Toriel wouldn’t want anybody else picking them up. An opportunity for some hapless soul to hurt themselves… or someone wicked to hurt others. 

But of course this meant that going out to retrieve everything meant  _ leaving  _ this human alone, even for the slightest period of time. What if he  _ needed  _ her? 

She checked on him again, he didn’t need her: still out cold but stable. 

Another unpleasant thought assaulted her, what if the human  _ needed _ something in that bag to live? Toriel had an unpleasant memory of the one previous child, how they needed to take this medicine to breathe and the horrible gasping noises they made when they couldn’t find their ‘inhaler’. Toriel had almost  _ killed  _ them because she was ignorant, what if this one had a similar ailment? 

Toriel checked on the human yet again and noticed his breathing was quite audible and wheezy: almost sounding labored… was this new or did she only notice because she was  _ looking  _ for it? Whichever the case: Toriel made the decision to  _ bolt  _ from the house. She made it to the fall site in record time, the only delay in her path was when she stopped at the hole to listen for the sounds above. 

There was nothing, what had once been an unseen well of dissonance and earth shaking sound was now dead quiet: it was almost as if nothing had ever been amiss at all. There was no chance in believing that though when Toriel brought her attention back to the ground, to the blood stained flowers and the insidious things they concealed. She went for the first weapon she saw (whilst doing so reluctantly), but when her claws wrapped around it, Toriel immediately dropped it with a flinch and a painful exclamation. She saw the red covering the gun and knew it was going to hurt, but when she actually picked it up it was like something  _ bit her.  _ This ferocious and horrible sensation struck her hand and traveled up her arm. It was like the weapon bled its intentions into her, violently snapping and gritting its teeth. Just what was this human  _ doing  _ before this? 

Toriel did not want to touch the cold and soulless thing again but it was either her or someone else with more consequences… The second attempt came with her bracing and actively ready to ward off the bad feelings. The horrible sensation was upon her again as the weapon passively attacked her once more, she felt cold and all kinds of horrible inside. She gathered up the second weapon and the backpack with similar negative results, they were all heavy with bad energy. The trek back home was harder than the previous ones to and fro, Toriel would almost be overjoyed to separate herself from the items… only interrupting her eagerness with a much needed check on the still sleeping human. 

While she may have felt better confiscating everything from the ground, Toriel now had the issue that all of these violent things were in her  _ house:  _ the place she swore never to condone or invite it into. Now that they were here, Toriel could not take her eyes off them: what was the story behind all this, what kind of situations had these weapons been a part of?, what kind of  _ harm  _ had they inflicted? Better  _ yet…  _ What kind of harm was this human capable of doing?

Nope, that was enough of that. Toriel wanted no more to do with that kind of thought, so much in fact that she would take the bigger of the two black firearms away and confine it to her bedroom: going so far as wrapping it up with the damp hoodie so she wouldn’t have to look at it anymore. She didn’t even want to touch the first gun again though, it was left laying on her reading stand with the bag and the pocket items. As for the bag… Toriel just ‘ _ knew’  _ it just had to have contained more weapons, it certainly felt like it could with how heavy it was… but at the same time: it wasn’t  _ right  _ to look through it. Her curiosity was torturous at this point, but she just couldn’t bring herself to violate this human’s privacy like this, she never wished to do the same to any of her children… 

_ And look where that got her…  _

“Maybe just a peek?”

“ **_No!”_ **

It got to the point that Toriel outwardly argued with herself while desperately trying to think of how to occupy herself for the  _ hours  _ that would pass. The one thing she managed to do beside just sitting down and staring heavily at that muddy bag was to do what she did best: the creation of pie always helped calm her down. The familiar smell in the air diffused some of the stress. Toriel cut a generous piece and quietly placed it in the guest room for when the human would wake up. Not only was it there to further invite him, but to also corroborate his recovery. It was made with love to dispel the LOVE… that’s how she always made it. 

  
  
  


Toriel ended up falling asleep in her chair, it only came to her attention that she did when she was awakened to the sound of a voice coming from behind. 

“Why do I feel like I’ve seen this before?”

Twelve hours after the human fell, he was finally awake. Toriel almost leapt from her chair in her excitement but remembered to contain herself. She was aware of how strange this was going to be for the human and how being calm and restrained would be the best course of action. Toriel put on a warm smile, slowly got to her feet, and introduced herself… only for the human to end up shrinking into the farthest corner and cowering in fear from her. Nothing she tried assuaged the situation, Toriel would be able to see the true terror in the human’s eyes when she tried to comfort him. She had no clue what was wrong or if she had  _ done  _ something wrong, but seeing him shaking and yelling desperately made her feel so bad that it brought her to tears. 

The interaction only grew more awkward from there. The human’s name though, was Brainz: of course Toriel didn’t find this out until he left her shortly after… She  _ promised  _ herself that she wasn’t going to let that happen. After her last ‘child’ perished, Toriel told herself that she wasn’t going to let the next one leave under  _ any  _ circumstances: even if she had to resort to fear and intimidation to so. But  _ this  _ one, Brainz: was so  _ different  _ and unusual that Toriel ended up breaking that promise. 

Everything about him was simply beyond her experience, Toriel had never seen anybody like Brainz before. Not only did he show extreme and irrational fear to her, he doubted what he was seeing to the point that learning he wasn’t dreaming caused him to harm himself. His self depreciation worsened as Toriel tried to learn more about him, not only did he make it terribly clear that he hated himself and loathed his existence, but he also led Toriel to the realization of why it was so hard to heal him. Brainz told her in a questionably delirious state that he leapt down the mountain in an attempt to commit suicide. Even unconscious and dying, it was like his soul was still fighting. 

He told Toriel such vague yet  _ dramatic  _ things about himself. Her suspicions about those ‘other humans’ were true when Brainz told her that he was some kind of outlaw on the surface, that he was  _ chased  _ here. Not once did he try to defend his actions or viewpoint, he was content with seeing himself in the most contemptible way as his pursuers did. 

“I’m a mistake.”

He told her, going on to list all of his strange features as ‘deformities’, reluctantly trying to convince her he deserved none of her kindness… even going so far as to suggest going back to where she found him so he could be collected without affecting her life.

The  _ only  _ thing that Brainz was able to convince Toriel though… was that he needed a hug, and he needed one  **_badly._ **

That’s all she was able to do in the end for him, a hug. Toriel healed his wounds, mended his pants, and gave him a hug or two… When she did touch him again, she could detect a near bottomless well of bad feelings and doubts beneath his skin. She knew that she couldn’t help him by trying to trap him here, she could not help him except by letting him leave, carrying a few kindnesses with him. The sweater could keep him warm and let him feel her embrace, the book to show him the way if he became lost.

When the echo of the door closing behind him finally died down, Toriel felt her eyes watering up. The pain in her heart only turned to anger directed at herself for not doing more… but what else could she have done? If Brainz was right about being followed down here, he would do nothing but fight her for trying to keep him. This was anything but the ‘right’ thing to do but it was the  _ best  _ option. 

Then came the onslaught of thoughts into her head, indignant questions she  _ should’ve  _ asked him and phrases that begged her to slap her own forehead. Toriel’s mind was run amok with all the things that should’ve been spoken to Brainz. There was so much that could’ve been said in the beginning of this story, but nothing could’ve been conjured until it was already too late. It wasn’t her fault though, not entirely: this was just such a  _ new  _ and strange situation she found herself in… it felt like she had never spoken a word until this point resulting in this stilted performance. Brainz was too disoriented and groggy to pick up on anything, he wasn’t even sure he was still in reality. 

Just like that, her hopes had risen and her hopes had fallen once again. Toriel was back to her lonely little house, taking the lonely tunnel she seldom traveled back to it. Despite the tiredness from lack of sleep, Toriel would be right back on schedule for another undetermined time. Everything was back to normal…

Except for the handgun sitting on her nightstand.

“Please let me have done the right thing… forgive me, my child.” 

There were many things that Toriel didn’t know about Brainz, but there were a few things she figured out: and a scant few that she was  **absolutely certain on.**

Brainz fell down with  _ guns,  _ Brainz had guns. Judging by the mixture of guilt and contempt she could feel from him, Brainz had  _ used  _ guns in his past. His promise to her could’ve only been so good… especially when he didn’t even trust her enough to try the pie she left him. Toriel was terrified but  **not for him** . But for the clouds of  _ dust  _ he was capable of creating with these weapons. It wasn’t like she meant to leave him without any means of protecting himself, god knew that he was going to  _ need  _ to defend himself especially against  **_Asgore._ **

He told her he could handle himself… not directly with his words but with something different and frankly more terrifying. Besides the boundless doubt and self loathing he had, there was one more thing that Toriel could  _ immediately  _ sense in this human… something she always could with the others, but this one was different.  **_This_ ** one showed a far greater amount of it than anybody else she had ever seen:  **_The capacity to kill._ ** Every time Toriel checked him, it seemed like Brainz’s capacity for violence  _ changed:  _ one check and it seemed like the last thing he would ever want to do to someone, but the  _ next  _ and he could’ve slaughtered someone without batting an eye. Not only were his levels going higher than ever, but they were  _ volatile,  _ Toriel wasn’t even familiar with if they could be  _ decreased over time _ : and here he was showing he could peak and dip within seconds. 

With how twitchy and excitable Brainz was: one bad push could destroy any monster who stood before him. The firearms only served to make accomplishing this even  _ easier.  _ This is why ultimately Toriel withheld the weapons from him. She wouldn’t let him see the blood smeared pistol just feet behind her and the reason she came up with that dirty little fib about his hoodie. That request from her to resolve any encounters peacefully, was more like Toriel  _ begging  _ him to try and fight whatever impulses and urges that tried to control him. 

Toriel had no fear that Asgore would finally complete his terrible plan, there was no way he could beat Brainz. If this battered and grizzled human wanted to kill… _anybody?_ He’d be able to do it before they could even land a single blow on him… this was _without_ the use of guns. 

…

It was all just a matter of waiting to see what would happen now, just like the last six humans. The strangest and most heartache inducing ‘child’ out her door, starting the same process as all the others. Toriel would find out how it all went from her friend behind the door… if he was still alive. For now though?

**Waiting.**


	23. 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haven't you heard of the big scary monster?  
> The one with the red eyes and the sharp teeth, the long claws hiding underneath. 
> 
> Haven't you seen what the monsters done?   
> Laying waste to the field, avoiding the sun. 
> 
> What do you mean, the monster's about?  
> We'll gather our forces, and rip its black heart out.

Another day, another choice on how to cope with the insufferable dread. Toriel startled herself awake with the brunt of her latest nightmare, it took her an extra moment to come to her senses and quit the panic that caused her to fall from her very unkempt bed. What a terrible dream  _ this  _ one was: This time Toriel could remember being chased by this army of green faces. Brainz was there and he was running from them too, he brushed past Toriel and left her behind without so much as looking back. Toriel woke as soon as the damned legion overtook her, before she sank into their suffocating depths.

Toriel felt horrible, the nightmare had left her feeling drained of any rest her mere five hours of broken up sleep had earned her. This was actually an improvement over her first night “After Brainz” though where she hadn’t slept at all, making it two days in a row without sleep. Closing her eyes for  _ this  _ one was less voluntary and more mandatory… it sucked nevertheless. 

Two days since the strangest human she had ever seen fell down to the underground, a rather brief time for the lonely monster’s rigid schedule to fall apart. All of Toriel’s self inflicted chores had gone undone, she barely even noticed too. Her days were occupied with long and anxiety welcoming sessions sitting and staring at that freaking gun she still wouldn’t touch. Her nights would have her make regular trips to the hole, half expecting to run into someone on the way there and only leaving with disappointment and further apprehension,  **_fun._ ** With her new itinerary being so occupied, Toriel barely had any time to take care of herself: she never had any time where her thoughts weren’t obsessing over Brainz or what he said. 

Another week of this and Toriel would’ve driven herself madder than she already was.  **So it was a good thing she didn’t have to wait that long…**

Toriel made her hourly investigation to the hole one hour short of noon, she did not have to get there to realize something was amiss. The jabbing sensation she felt when Brainz fell hit her again and  **_hard._ ** Toriel felt  _ surreal  _ with how strong the sensation was. With her adapted impulses, the only logical outcome was that there were humans underground,  **_A LOT_ ** of humans… and the number was only growing by the minute. She ran as fast as she could, only slowed by the disorientation. Toriel made it to the final turn, heard vague voices, and then was stopped and blinded by a wall made of lights. This is where she would’ve sat up in her bed with a shout, the end of another dream. But Toriel would come to realize that she was very awake and this was actually happening. 

The first ten seconds were the hardest to endure, she couldn’t see anything but her hearing was quite unaffected and picked up a mass of discoordinate sounds. Dozens of rubber soles scrambling and planting themselves into the hard ground, all kinds of metallic  **_klicks!_ ** and  **_klacks!,_ ** but nothing more obvious than all the different baffled and even frightened interjections. 

“Wh- _ whoa!  _ Holy shit!”

“ _ Jesus _ !” 

“The’ _ ell  _ is  _ THAT?” _

“Contact!”    
  


For some reason, this cold and unfeeling thought inserted itself into Toriel’s mind: something of diabolical origin but a meaning she couldn’t deny or ignore. Toriel had every belief that she was going to die. But while the death overtook her thoughts, she would not succumb to it and continued to listen to the world.

“ **_SIR??_ ** We got something here!”

There were footsteps, the rattle of gear… and a new voice coming from behind the blinding wall. 

“Lemme see,  _ lemme  _ see!”

The voice seemingly noticed Toriel and sounded surprised, but more reserved than the others.

“The  _ fuck  _ am I lookin at?” 

“I don’t know, sir. It just showed up: what do we do? Should we take it down?”

“What? Nawh! Hold yer fire, all of yous!  _ Hold your fire!” _

That voice, it was louder and more powerful than the others and it was marinated in this thick accent that Toriel had picked up from one of the humans before, but that wasn’t the reason this voice sounded so  **_familiar…_ ** there was something else to it. 

It projected itself even more, like it was talking to her. 

“You there! You some kinda  _ animal  _ or do ye speak  **_english?”_ **

Technically Toriel didn’t speak english but now wasn’t the time for a lecture on how monsters worked. She was still badly disoriented from being caught off guard, but was able to answer clearly and coherently. 

“I can understand you.”

She wasn’t lying too.

There were murmurs, some astonished and amazed, the familiar voice spoke back to his friends.

“ _ Wow.  _ Hey- kill some of those lights! You try’nta blind the poor thing? Put em out, c’mon!”

The wall of light weakened enough for Toriel to lower her arms from shielding her face, she was able to finally get a look at these humans when her eyes stopped hurting. The first things she saw were neither the cold faces nor the strange ground colored clothes they all wore, but the sheer number of  **_guns_ ** everyone in the group was carrying.  **Big** guns and they were all pointed at her. Somebody made their way to the front of the group, he was the only one not actively carrying his weapon in his hands. He stopped with a pair of humans on his sides, keeping the distance from Toriel who had no intention of moving… lest she startle anybody. 

“Why hello there!”

He finally said, completely breaking away from the silent tension suffocating the corridor. 

“I am Captain Pailurn with the US Special Forces 5th Battalion.  _ National Guard.  _ Can I ask you here for a name?”

Well that was a lot of words Toriel didn’t know, but she was at least able to give him what he wanted, if not hesitant and greatly overwhelmed.

“I am- uh. My- _ my name is  _ Toriel. I. Watch over the RUINS. Which is where we are. R-right now? This place you are.”

She even pointed to the ground and smiled nervously. 

Captain Pailurn stuck out his lower lip and nodded understandingly. 

“Alright. I’ma gonna assume you’re uh-  _ friendly?  _ Are ye  _ armed  _ or anything?” 

It took her a minute to realize he was asking if she was carrying weapons, like everybody else was… the delay was  **_NOT_ ** because Toriel wasn’t sure if she was friendly to them. Of  _ course  _ she was, she was just really really scared. She nodded and then realized the captain was probably concerned with his latter question, so Toriel turned the nod into a frantic little shake.

Good thing Pailurn seemed to figure what she meant. He even chuckled a bit.

“Alrigh-  _ heh- _ alright. I get it, you’re good… Can I kindly ask ye somethin else now?  **What in the hoppin fuck are you?”**   
  


**...**

* * *

So… everything Brainz said was true, Toriel had to assume he was exaggerating to some degree but no. There were people who came after him, a  _ lot  _ of them:  **_97_ ** was the number she was told. Even as she escorted the front group through the RUINS, more and more of them were entering the underground. She  _ did  _ want to tell them about the barrier, but it was already far too late for that to be of any help now. Toriel was going to have to tell them later and  **_besides…_ ** with all these humans here, they could finally  _ break _ the barrier. 

The trip back to the house would be the second most harrowing one Toriel made, the  _ first  _ coming from  **this** direction. This was really not much different than the other humans she brought back… Toriel telling them about the underground and monsters and such… She was just doing so to a massive group of people who could kill her and everyone else in an instant, who made her think they  _ would  _ everytime a froggit or a puzzle crossed their path. 

“ _ Please!” _

She would turn around and shout, getting all of the weapons reaffirmed on her. 

“Do not harm any monster! We do not wish for  _ any  _ hostility!”

That was a bit of a lie but… Normally Toriel had to protect the stray human from the  _ monsters  _ coming to see them, but she knew in every sense that she had to do the  _ opposite  _ thing now. Toriel sorely hoped the monsters of the ruins would be smart enough  _ not  _ to instigate with a force this strong. This wasn’t just a force that could destroy every monster down here, but it was a force made with the intention and capability to destroy every human on the surface. There would be nothing anybody could do if the dust started flying. 

“ _ Really?  _ No hostility? What’s with all the  **_booby traps_ ** then? Mmn? Gotch’yer room fulla spikes and yer tiger pits.”

“These are not  **_traps,_ ** they are  **_puzzles._ ** These have existed since the beginning of the underground, to protect us from further attacks if the humans decided their actions were. Insufficient.” 

She kind of had to sugar coat things and especially make herself more appealing, being that the guns were not looking away from her anytime soon. She may have been leading this group but she was ultimately in its captivity and mercy. Toriel had to keep answering their questions optimistically. 

Pailurn was really the only person who spoke to her, everyone else in his squad were just waiting for the monster to try something, their fingers were dancing over their trigger guards. 

“Uh-huh, and this is from the  _ “war”  _ that was-  _ how long ago exactly?”  _

He sure sounded skeptical of her. 

Toriel disarmed the last switch in the pillar room maze

“Thousands of years ago. We coexisted on the surface until humanity attacked. The majority of us were slaughtered and the survivors were brought here and imprisoned within Earth…”

Toriel realized how dark and ‘not nice’ that sounded and made sure to double back.

“But there are no hard feelings!” 

Sure there weren’t. 

“ _ Wowwww…” _

Pailurn sounded so patronizing with that one that it made Toriel stop her walking and look at him not unlike a hurt child. 

“Oh,  _ pardon  _ me.”

He said, holding up his empty hands. 

“I don’t exactly mean to sound uh- well like I don’t believe a single thing I seen down here, but  _ uhhh-  _ I’m havin a hard time believe’n a  _ single  _ thing I seen down here.”

Pailurn made some kind of subtle motion to the soldiers behind him and took a step or two closer to Toriel.

“Yesterday I’m pretty damn sure I know everything I need’ta bout the  _ world,  _ and uhh now? Well no  _ offense  _ but now I’m conversin with a fuh-reaking walkin talkin goat lady in a purple  _ dungeon.  _ This be a little  _ strange,  _ is all. I dun’even  _ know  _ how I’m explaining this to everybody else without winnin a  **_section 8._ ** This is wild.”

When they were just outside of the front yard, Toriel showed the humans the balcony that overlooked the lower ruins. Pailurn was ‘politely’ astounded.

“Ho-ley she _ eeit _ . How freakin big  _ is  _ this place?” 

“It is not as big as it seems, you will find the underground is quite small: at least for as long as we have been trapped under here.” 

“And uh,  **_how_ ** many of you are living down here?”

That was going to be an answer Toriel couldn’t do much more than speculate, her inevitable hesitation was thankfully interrupted by a disgruntled man pushing his way into the small space.  
“We’re _never_ gonna find him now! Goddammit!” 

In came the second ‘unique’ human from the bunch: while he had the same chunky looking vest as everyone else did, he was wearing a dark blue jacket underneath. He also lacked a helmet atop his head just like Pailurn, this guy though had a modest head of hair where the captain didn’t. Pailurn scoffed and sought to properly introduce him to Toriel with eyes rolling.

“Pardon the cold shoulder: this here is ‘Lieutenant Lunezo Mordegrid of the Counter-Terrorism Department’ he ain’t quite  _ with  _ us but he came all this way to help us out with something and uhh- He’s still got  _ other  _ things on his mind by some means.” 

Pailurn didn’t even try to hide the shot towards Mordegrid, who had no issue with stepping right up to Toriel and dispelling the attempt to make him look bad. He sounded as irritated as ever.

“Oh well I  _ ‘beg your  _ **_pardon’_ ** ma’am. With all due respect: While you are without a doubt the weirdest thing I have ever laid my eyes upon and this-”

Arms splayed out wherever there was room.

“-is something out of a fever dream? I can’t say I’m really surprised to be  _ seeing  _ this. I just.”

He found he couldn’t continue his sentence for a moment, not without scoffing himself and chuckling incredulously. 

“(It’s un- _ fucking- _ believable!)”

He stopped speaking to Toriel altogether and only to himself.

“You finally did it, didn’t you? This  _ really  _ is your greatest batch of  **_bullshit_ ** yet… Fucking  _ monsters!”  _

Pailurn shared a glance with the monster, drooping his eyes.

“You can probably tell we didn’t come here for all this- we were lookin for a fella up top, did himself a disappear’n trick a couple days ago. Any chance he came your way?”

“Of  _ course  _ he did! He  _ had  _ to, but then  _ again-  _ We’re not following a trail of destruction and dead bodies.  **_That’s_ ** not like Omega at  _ all. _ ”

“Ah- _ Omega??” _

Admittedly, she was already fearful from the soldiers but Toriel was inexplicably taken off guard. She sounded too nervous to  _ not  _ be associated with that name. And now that she said it… they were all looking at her, dubiously. She could feel the majority of the room  **_looking_ ** **at her.** In her unexpected panic, what else was she to do but offer her kindness?”

“Uhhm- oh, well we are just outside of my home! Why not discuss this inside? Perhaps I can offer some commodities?”

**“Answer the question.”**

Mordegrid pressed onto her bluntly, making his disposition for the monster obvious. The monster glanced over to Pailurn as if he would actually help her. 

“Well  _ did  _ he?”

Toriel froze, outside of the twitching. She was scared for Brainz but she was  _ terrified  _ **_of_ ** these people. She felt this horrible sensation inside of her, this cold  _ emptiness _ like a  **_void_ ** pulling on her from every angle. She had to say something but every part of her and then some were telling her, nay,  _ screaming  _ at her not to tell them in a voice she could swear she had heard before. These ‘good guys’ wanting her help taking out the ‘bad guy’, Brainz, the person Toriel knew needed better than she could provide… that she  _ thought  _ she could provide. These feelings that stirred inside of her, they were horrible and this moment felt like it was going to last for the rest of her life. The worst part of this though was that it felt like she had been put up to this a  _ thousand  _ times but she couldn’t put her claw on any of the circumstances. 

They were  _ waiting,  _ she was  _ stalling.  _ It was only going to worsen with each second of hesitation they saw in her. Five seconds and she looked pretty bad, eight seconds and the suspicions were on her, but  _ nine  _ seconds and it was already too late as something was suddenly passed through the procession of soldiers into their captain’s hands. Mordegrid read it out for everybody, his eyes actually widened… but not as much as Toriel’s.

“Hey. That’s his  _ Commander.” _

Someone in the back made the fact that they entered Toriel’s home uninvited obvious.

“Found it as soon as we walked in, it’s on a table with a couple of his other things.  _ Unloaded,  _ I already checked, sir.”

Pailurn looked at the weapon in his open palm and then swung his head to Toriel.

“ _ Unsure _ , huh?” 

The entire room turned on her.

* * *

  
  
  


“Wow, for a cave dwelling monster: you sure keep a nice place here. Very  _ cozy.”  _

The captain paced around the living room fiddling with the confiscated weapon, pulling its slide back and forth. Toriel was ‘ushered’ into here and sat down in her reading chair while the soldiers spread through her home. Noticing one of them trying the last door in the hallway, Toriel would realize the purpose of the two shotgun wielding men standing before her when she tried to stand up. 

Pailurn arrested her shoulder, causing a terrible shudder to run through Toriel. 

“ _ No no,  _ don’t get up, it’s fine. 

He told her cordially.

She stuttered.

“You do not understand, I-I have to-”

Pailurn cut her off-

“Yeaah…”

-and casually messed around with some of Brainz’s things on the nightstand. 

“ _ So  _ ahh- wouldja like to  _ say  _ anything about this? Specifically about the guy we both  _ know  _ came through here?  _ Or  _ would you like to lie to my face again?”

  
“ _Lie?_ I have not fibbed to you at all!”

“Yeaahh, but you know how a picture says ‘a thousand words’ and all that stuff? Well sometimes a bit of silence for something real easy can do the  _ same.  _ But I’ll give you an even easier one, all ya gotta do is  _ share  _ with me whatcha  _ did _ -”

He held up the cursed gun to her and shook it around kind of playfully.

“-with this  _ very special  _ ‘human’.”

Toriel always felt like this place was a prison of her own making, but never in the  _ literal _ sense like now. 

“Jesus  _ Christ.” _

Mordegrid was heard from the front hall. The soldier that worried Toriel the most did exactly what caused her to stir. The man walked out with the dark hoodie as well as it’s even  _ darker  _ possession. The police lieutenant made sure to let everyone know about the development.

“Yeah that’s his jacket and- his  _ Submachine Gun?” _

He wasn’t allowed to play with the weapon like Pailurn was, but Mordegrid found he was more interested in Toriel. Stamping up to her and blurting out.

“There’s no  _ way  _ he’d leave all this behind- did you  **_kill_ ** him?!”

Somebody made a snide comment.

“Probably ate him.” 

Toriel exclaimed right back after a brief gasp for the absurdity.

“I did  _ nothing  _ of that sort!”

How dare this man even assume that she  _ would?  _ All Toriel wanted to do was help others, like a good mother would. But all she ever saw was fear and mistrust from humans and monsters. All they saw was a harmful entity, they were not going to give her a chance. Perhaps this was just treatment after her failures.

“Aight. Then  _ where is he??”  _

That void had removed all the warmth from her, there was nothing now but the crushing pressure outside and the boundless sinking feeling  _ inside.  _ There was nothing Toriel could do except come clean… Well, she could keep herself from crying, but barely. 

She tried to calm and slow herself down with a long defeated sigh.

“He is long gone now. I was left behind far before all of you came here.”

Then returning the sinister intentions slung onto her, with a sullen voice.

“I did not inflict any harm onto him. Instead, I mended all the harm  _ you  _ inflicted upon him.”   
  


“How long ago?”

“Wait what?”

Mordegrid was faster on the draw, sounding much more methodical. Pailurn on the other hand motioned for him to let him speak.

“Wait wait wait, whattaya  _ mean  _ **_WE_ ** did anything? We didn’t show up until  _ after  _ he found you. We did jack  _ sheit  _ to him. The hell are ye talkin about?”

The captain sounded irritated enough to be believable, Toriel knew what she dealt with though and remained sullen.

“He did  _ not  _ come to me, I found  _ him  _ lying motionless in the flowers,  _ injured.  _ He was  _ bleeding  _ profusely from all the places he was struck- **_F̶̻͔͕͜͠i̵̭̰̍̿͘͠͠v̷̜͓̝͌̊͜͜e̶̪̿̊̂́ ̴̮̻̾͂̈s̷͎͈̃i̷̯̭̯̇ţ̵̨͉̖̹̌e̷̩̹̼͆̚s̷̗͌ ̸̧̢̢̹̘͐̍̉͠o̴̗͛f̶̰͂͝ ̵̞͍͗̋̌̃̕b̴̧̼͖͓̯̏a̸̧̦̳͍͚̿̓̌ľ̷̰͉͇͓̩̈́͊l̷͔̺̝̎̈́̎͆̚ǐ̵̡̛̅̇͠ṡ̵͍̺t̴̞̩̯͉̀̊̍͝í̴͕̗͚c̴̨̮̱̎́̏ ̶͔͙̒ț̴͇̊̋r̷̥͕̫̳̈͑a̶̳̅̂u̷̢̗̫̱̪̎m̵͕̘̪͒̈́̆̈a̴̛͉͈̓̋.̴̗̲̯̃͜_ **

**_̶̰̜̗͖͋̾_ **

**_̸̟̺̑͗͒1̵̥̱͙̺̌͂̓͒̈ͅx̸̡͖͚̋͜ ̷̛̱̰͊̓̾9̸̢̖͇͆m̷̲̅m̴̦͎̣͎͘ ̸͔̹̿̆̊͘_ **

**_̶͉̹̰͋͊͗̽3̶̜͊̿̔̂x̵̯̫͈͎̤ ̶̛̮̘̿5̷̝͖̝́̐̇.̸͉̅̒̄̓͜5̸̨͍̼̆̉̏̇6̵̧͔͕̏̾x̴͖̻͓̲̣̎4̴̧̮͝5̵͇̪̇͌̂͘_ **

**_̴̧͉͎̖͋͆1̴̢̉ ̷͕̖̤̺̲͗̈́1̴̲̮͗2̶̣̦̦̜͑͆̊G̸͍͈̈̌̃̒͝ ̵̯͗ͅB̴̛̗̎͐̚͝ų̴̱̇c̵̠̯̙̔̈́̚̚͝k̵̨̜͉͌̃s̸̟̅̎h̶̻̦̽͒̆̈͗o̶̥̳͍͗͒͊͒ẗ̷͕́̄̓͘_ **

**_Ạ̵̮̒l̶̻͚͗͛l̶͍͖ ̷̮̈́c̸̯̣̆a̵͕̎͝ļ̵͑i̴̘͑̔͜b̸̙̔̆e̷̡̓r̵̺̄s̷̭͒ ̴̮͍͑m̸̺̰͌a̶̟͕͊͊t̷͚̋͝c̸̩̊͆h̶͍͙̓̇ ̴̡ṱ̸̙ẖ̵̇ͅe̸͍̩͒͠ ̵͍̜̀ċ̸̣ų̵̭̐͝ŗ̵̘̆̚r̶͖̳̈́̉e̸͉̩͘n̶̔̃ͅt̴͈̾͝ ̵̛̺͓w̷̝̦̔e̴̙͋ͅa̴̛͎̦p̷̖̜͊ö̴͔̹n̶̘̘͝s̸̹̬͆̿ ̸̰͛̌i̵̙̾n̵̬͆ ̵̝͖̄̂t̵͎͐̓ͅh̴͓̮̊̈́e̸̟͊̅ ̴̮̈́ṙ̵͍̋o̴̓̾͜ó̸͕m̴͈̦͆͑_ **

_ G̸̲̋Ű̷͔͖͘I̴̤̚L̸͎̠͘Ţ̷̯̏̓Ŷ̷̗̭͋ ̴̒͗ͅO̸̻͙͛͠Ǹ̵̡̗̀Ẹ̵͍̊S̷̖̔ ̸̹̰͌̍Ḯ̵̥̪Ṋ̶̰̊̋ ̵̡̹̃T̷͓̅H̷̭̄͊E̸̩͗ ̷̖͛R̶͙̝̔O̸̪̊O̶͔͉̔M̴̻̎:̷̢͚̚ ̸̢̦̐̑2̴̲͐ _

_̷̼̜̒I̸̻͉̒͐N̶̛̟̙̽Ć̶͙͙O̶̰͒Ṇ̷̄C̷̳̊̽Ë̴͖İ̵̠̑Ṽ̵̗̿Ą̵̯̓͘B̵̨̄̐L̸̟͊Ë̸̯ ̸̯̓̕_ your weapons are an unmistakable- the… what am I saying?”

All she could see was the bewilderment in Mordegrid’s face, all she could hear was Pailurn breaking into loud laughter.

“ _ HAH!  _ Aha! The goat knows more about guns than  _ you  _ do!”

‘I do?...’

“I-I’m- I  _ am  _ sorry. I do not know what came over me.”

She blacked out for a moment, only coming back to her senses in a tirade she wasn’t aware of. Of course she worried about it, more so how it  _ looked  _ to all these people. Pailurn found it funny, so that meant all of his soldiers had to as well. Mordegrid though, he showed intimidation for her when they first met and he was showing it more now. 

“(How the hell does something like you know about-)  _ No  _ though. Uhm. He’s telling you the truth, Ma’am. The military hadn’t showed up until after Omega- the human you met? - got away. They couldn’t have attacked him.”

“Then… who did?”

The police man looked astray, and grunted uncomfortably before coming back to her.

“That would be the people I sent after him.”

“ **_You?”_ **

Mordegrid took a step back, only relaxing due to the fact he knew Toriel would be dead before she could act against him. Somehow she got the gist of this and it made her feel just a little bit worse as those two shotgun wielding soldiers weren’t going anywhere. Still… she furthered her thought while staring down Mordegrid.

“Why do you want to  **_kill_ ** him?”

“Why do I want to kill him? A  _ lot  _ of people  _ want  _ to kill him. I just want to make him pay for all he’s done.”

He should’ve had no problem telling her off but the way she stared into him… not vindictively or angrily but like a hurt puppy, it made him really uncomfortable. She seemed genuinely upset about this while on the other hand this was a very controversial subject for Mordegrid. Toriel pressed more, bringing her voice to a sincere whisper and squinting at him.

“What could Brainz have possibly done that would warrant this? Please, you must share with me.” 

After that line, Mordegrid had this calculating look on his face, a deep thought had been started.

“See? Even  _ she  _ calls him by that.”

“Oh  _ shut up.” _

Ignoring Pailurn.

“He didn’t tell you?”

Toriel started showing less hesitation with Mordegrid, while Pailurn had the more ‘friendly’ and non serious demeanor. Toriel felt more threatened by his presence and fluctuating mannerisms. Even though he just admitted his responsibility for Brrainz’s injuries  _ and  _ his intentions: Toriel would have an easier time talking to him. He even softened his approach with her. She shook her head slightly to him.

“ **No,** he mentioned to me that he was ‘in trouble’ and that you would be following him here shortly after but… that is all I was told. But. No. He referred to himself as ‘the bad guy’ he even suggested that he turn himself  _ in _ . All I know is that he seems so very sorry for his actions.”

The momentum in the room came to a stop, nobody responded for a long enough moment that Toriel would speak up again. She saw this as a failure of communication, that these people just may not have  _ known  _ what she did about Brainz. The things he told her because she trusted him, it could’ve been the first time he ever spoke of them to  _ anybody.  _

“It is worse than you may imagine. He was in a far more dire condition than I appraised when I found him. I brought him here and I mended his physical wounds but I found that the worst of his injuries were  _ emotional.  _ He  _ told  _ me that he jumped into the hole, not to get away from anybody but because he intended to commit  **suicide.** He needs help, and he would not let me care for him like I wished to do so because he was fearful that you would harm me for any association to him.”

Everyone in the room went silent, giving the required moment to take it all in as they exchanged all kinds of glances at each other. For just a second, Toriel felt hope she got through to them.

Then Pailurn started guffawing and everybody else followed suit, except for Mordegrid who just sighed and rubbed his eyes exasperatedly. The intention from the majority was so obviously disrespect that the monster would squint and even blush slightly in the swirling storm of obnoxious laughs. 

“I do not understand-”

Toriel found it in herself not to up and start scolding the military about manners. She made a very deadpan statement.

“-am I missing some kind of a joke? Why have you found this funny?”

Pailurn just held a finger while prolonging his fun. Toriel looked to Mordegrid for help but he just shook his head at her, wearing the most grave expression on his face.

The rude captain turned to  _ his  _ men for affirmation, still grinning wildly. 

“You believe this shit?  _ Can  _ you  _ believe  _ this shit?  _ Mother _ fucker!” 

Pailurn wiped a non-existent tear from his eye and depressed the humor in his words as he glared threateningly to Toriel.

“You. Are  _ not  _ puttin up a good impression for your kind there. Abetting a  _ criminal?  _ MMn-mnn… It’s not gonna be an easy sell turnin you  _ all in.” _

* * *

Toriel felt like she sank ten kilometers into her chair, she gripped the rests for dear life. The implications instilled all the terror inside of her.  _ Just like her  _ **_dream._ ** _ All these faces and green, they’re all staring, drunk with hostility and mistrust. She couldn’t run away, she couldn’t hide, Brainz knew why he had to leave… He knew she was dead the moment she put her foot down.  _

_ Dead. _

_ Toriel was dead, she could feel herself rotting: the RED leaked from her and stained the chair. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t talk, she could only see those who shared her fate. _

_ Faces wearing green reduced to erect statues of blackened bones and charred meat.  _

_ The one with the shotgun who arrested her here, he was only six meters away when it happened: his skin turned to liquid within seconds but he felt it for months.  _

**_I want to go home…_ **

_ A man without a head leaned against the entrance wall. _

**_Help me..._ **

_ The captain’s eyes went dark, there was no soul behind them to look into. It was ground to chalk dust, staining the floor. _

**_You destroyed me, I didn’t like that… Now they know they can hate you, all you’ve done is justified what we’ve done._ **

**YOU ARE THE BAD GUY.**

All the voices: jeering, laughing, crying,  _ hating, threatening,  _ **_screaming._ ** She had heard them a million times, Toriel  _ OWNED  _ them. They were all for her, her own doing. They wouldn’t stop, they  _ couldn’t  _ stop. 

* * *

“Alright,  _ STOP THIS!  _ What the hell is wrong with you people?!”

Mordegrid silenced them all, the blood seeping from his wounds and soaking his clothes did not damper his frustrations in any way. They wouldn’t even exist after Toriel blinked and felt alive again. 

“If this is how you  _ run  _ things, I think I’m scared to be a part of this, I might be fucking  _ terrified  _ for anyone you  _ crossed!”  _

“...What?...” 

An eternity passed, and that was the reward for patience. Captain Pailurn just meekly letting his arms dangle and pathetically asking Mordegrid what he was doing wrong like a child being scolded. 

“ ‘What?!’ What do you  _ mean _ ‘ **_what?’???_ ** You’re threatening an unarmed woman planning to do ‘god knows what’ to her? Are you soldiers or are you  **_rapists?”_ **

Pailurn scoffed, slightly outraged at the assumption… yet he didn’t refute it any: he just tried to justify himself. The tone in his voice hopped up a level and he pointed at Toriel like a tattle tale. 

“What’re you  _ on  _ about? You heard her! She just flat out admitted that she  _ helped  _ Brainz! The guy you went and drove  _ all the way  _ out here for? Yeah he’s doin just fine because of her. I thought for  _ sure  _ I’d have to be the one pryin you offa her.”

Mordgrid leaned back for a moment, he just had to.

“ _ Oh my-” _

He tried to bend over to start an apology to Toriel but he couldn’t finish that either. After some stuttering and mental parsing he ended up applying his palm to his face and groaning.

“What kind of amatuer operation  _ is this??” _

Pailurn was much quicker on the draw now, he reminded Toriel of why she was too intimidated to speak. The angry side came out of the man.

“Alright stead of up and insulting me to my  _ face _ , why dont’cha enlighten all of us what we’re doin  _ oh so  _ wrong, hm?-”

He angrily fanned his hand to one of his ears.

“-Lemme hear it!”

If the intention was to make Mordegrid back down, it failed. Mordegrid took a sharp breath and nodded willfully.

“ **Alright.** You’re making one of the  _ easiest  _ blunders in this line of work you can, and considering you read my  _ file  _ on Brainz, I up and figured you would  _ know  _ better but- I’ll tell you  _ This?” _

He grasped Toriel by her shoulder… she did not flinch and just looked at him. Mordegrid made sure to scan the entire room and glance at everyone in it.

“This is  _ not  _ Toriel’s  **_fault!_ ** If you’re gonna punish her for this, it’s  _ wrong  _ and I’m sure with some work it’s  _ criminal!  _ This is not complicity or subordination, this is you treating a  **_victim_ ** like the  _ killer!”  _

He was met with a snide chuckle and a forced smile.

“Alright lemme tell ya somethin there, first? I think the  _ last  _ thing the goven’ment’s gonna care about when this goes up is how we treated a full fledged  _ monster  _ in a cave-”

To Toriel quickly.

“No offense.”   
  


“- Secondly, I just wanna make sure you know that if it wasn’t for her, Brainz would be  _ dead?  _ We’d up and find him stewin in his own blood and bowels on the floor and you’d get a big fuck’n medal and a bus fulla goven’ment approved cheerleaders?  _ Makin  _ sure you know that.”

“I am  _ fully  _ aware of that and all you’re doing is proving my point that you don’t know what you’re dealing with- you may have  _ way  _ more training than me and people whose  _ job  _ it is to listen to you without questioning it-”

Some of the soldiers either shrugged or dared to look at each other before their captain turned around himself to face them for a moment. 

“- but you haven’t spent most of your life going after  _ Brainz.  _ You can’t pick up his  _ patterns,  _ you don’t know his  _ quirks,  _ you don’t know the reasons  _ why  _ he’s so goddamn dangerous to  _ begin  _ with. And y-ye-y you can’t even see the overall thing that makes all this so  _ ridiculous!  _ You are so eager to ‘bag a bad guy’ that you’re up and ready to start a full fledged  _ war!” _

Perhaps he was getting ahead of himself on the matter of Pailurn getting ahead of himself, Mordegrid signed for a moment to calm down and bring his voice back to normal. 

“Brainz saved his own ass, had nothing to do with Toriel here.” 

  
  


“ _ Wowww-” _

Done patronizingly with a faux surprised face and a nod to cap it off.

“-So it was  _ Brainz  _ who tended to his own injuries and sent himself off here, and all while  _ unconscious-” _

Pailurn looked to Toriel for quick confirmation.

“-it’s what you said right? He was unconscious?”

She didn’t answer him, Pailurn already took it as a yes and snickered again to Mordegrid.

“I gotta  _ say, _ I knew he had to have been good to get out of  _ your  _ clutches time and time again _ -I mean how else could he?-  _ I didn’t realize he was  _ magical,  _ I guess that’d explain the hole situation now wouldn’t it?  _ Maybe  _ this is where he  _ came  _ from!”

Mordegrid sighed and shook his head again.

“Don’t be an  _ idiot.”  _

“ _ Hey….”  _

“ _Obviously_ she tended to him, but the thing _is:_ he was just a _guy_ to her. If these people have been isolated down here for “ _thousands of years”_ emphasis on **_isolated._** How exactly is Toriel supposed to know that she helped a goddamned terrorist leader? Huh?”

To her, somewhat sarcastically.

“You don’t happen to have basic  _ cable  _ down here by any chance, do you?” 

Toriel was not exactly concerned with that though, she was actually very stuck on something else Mordegrid said. A sole word with diabolical meaning.

“ **_Terrorist???”_ **

The captain was quick to jump on her and worsen the dreadful feeling.

“Oh  _ ya-  _ not just any terrorist, mind you: this guy is like the  _ king  _ of terrorists- domestic ones at least. A- _ whoops? _ ”

Could Mordegrid help her? She had to look at him for help for everything it seemed. He was more straightforward and frankly  **_mature_ ** than Pailurn.

“It means a  _ very  _ bad guy who’s done some very bad things.” 

No no, she didn’t need help with that. Toriel knew  _ exactly  _ what the word meant and all of the terrible thoughts and dreams it enticed, despite never hearing it be uttered once in her life. She was just having trouble connecting everything to the pitiful fellow she cared for. She meant to clarify such to Mordegrid but he started talking to the room again.

“You know, while it is  _ unbelievable  _ what he did here: I’m not really finding it too difficult to believe it myself. This is  _ exactly  _ something he would do, this is  _ so  _ him. He comes down here to this  **_unprecedented_ ** place that I’m sure is going to blow  **_wide_ ** open- this is gonna change  _ history  _ you know that? We’re in something that has  _ never  _ happened before as far as we know- a literal  _ lost  _ civilization!”

Getting off track again… Mordegrid shook himself out of it as well as his hands.

“Aa--aa-a _ -ANYWAY:  _ this fucking guy stumbles into this place, basically this new world and what does he do? He leaves it for all of  _ us  _ to get distracted with!”

An overall drone of murmurs and discordant reactions proved how much everyone bought the theory, Pailurn had nothing to say. Mordegrid continued, encouraged by the response from the room.

“This is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before but for  _ Brainz  _ it’s just another day at ‘work!’ And it’s not even  _ that,  _ he didn’t even have to really make a  _ mess  _ for us to clean up this time! But the fact is, we’re sitting here trying to comprehend all this while he’s probably halfway to Canada!” 

Only Mordegrid would conjure such a thought, to everybody else this was just a whackjob conspiracy. To him though, it was  _ brilliant _ , the perfect method for an uncatchable man to escape with. How good did this feel to know that his prediction of ‘magic’ and ‘fantasy’ actually came true? 

“You really outdid yourself this time, Brainz…  _ bastard.”  _

While everybody except Toriel was primed to break off into argument and small conversations amidst themselves, Pailurn was skeptical despite everything. He put a stop to everyone’s fretting.

“ _ Aaaalllright,  _ no more of that! Hold on,  _ Hoooold  _ on here. So we’re garglin that  _ not only  _ is there a ancient civilization of sorts under New  _ York.  _ But  **_somehow,_ ** Brainzy up and  _ knew  _ about it this whole time? Like what? His little ace up his sleeve? I mean  _ sheeit!  _ I know he’s good, but you ain’t laid on that he’s  **_THIS_ ** good. Hell, I’m bettin then he knew  _ exactly  _ what we’d be doin right now since we’re at it.”

The sarcasm was nearly suffocating, half of it was ignorance (At least that’s how Mordegrid saw it) though so it wasn’t enough to really set the police lieutenant off in a way that’d fulfill Pailurn’s itching for a fight. Mordegrid again just sighed (with more exasperation) and sought to put everybody on the same page.

“ _ Noo…  _ well-I-I don’t  _ know  _ actually. If he knew about this, it’d explain his erratic behavior or why he came  _ out  _ here but. I  _ don’t  _ think he planned this- but what I  _ do  _ think is that he opened his eyes down here and only saw every way he could exploit this situation. He exploited the circumstances, the geography.”

Then he finally gave Toriel his attention again, she had been meekly trying to say something during this but she hadn’t the confidence to try harder. Her mind was a mess of terrible thoughts saturated in dread. Mordegrid extended an open palm to her, with such care and consideration. He softened his voice, with a kind of sympathy so genuine that Toriel felt bad about… that  _ he  _ felt bad for  _ her.  _

“He exploited  _ her…  _ That’s how he does it. He took advantage of a good samaritan and left her behind to be a suspect.  _ Just to buy himself time to escape.  _ It’s  **_disgusting._ ** ”

“ _ No!” _

Toriel finally spoke up, she finally had the ability to do so and turn everyone’s heads back to her. It was all kinds of terrifying but she just couldn’t remain silent for any longer. Not with these blatant  _ lies  _ scratching into her ears. Again, with all eyes on her: she tried to sound calm. 

“Pardon me. But-”

She sounded more like a wee child scared stiff from stagefright. 

“- I believe. You are mistaken, Mister Mordegrid.”

So Toriel regretted saying that straight away. With how Mordegrid shook in his place and repeated something she said with wide eyes.

“ **_Mistaken???”_ **

The army captain just made this irritating and provoking noise, his lips curling up.

“ _ Ooooooooh sheeeit.  _ Y’hear that? You’re  _ mistaken  _ ‘ **Mister Mordegrid!’”**

He started guffawing again, but made a very admirable effort to silence himself…  **_Because he knew what was coming next. He wanted a front row seat for it._ **

It made Toriel expect a round of yelling and lashing out from the only relatable person in the room but the methodical way Mordegrid would speak would make it so much worse. He bent down closer to her and cleared all emotion from himself.

“I’m afraid that  _ you’re  _ mistaken, ma’am. While I am not entirely sure of the extent of the contact you’ve had with Brainz, I couldn’t be more sure that the sad and ‘sorry’ person you dealt with, is  _ not  _ the same person who fell down here before us.  **You’ve been** **_lied_ ** **to.** ”

“I cannot agree with you, I am sorry. You speak of a ‘bad guy’ but I am speaking of a person with regrets and fears.”

As intimidated as she was, Toriel just could not accept this. These people couldn’t have known what she picked up from Brainz. There was no way he could feign what was inside of him, you couldn’t hide what was inside your SOUL. 

This back and forth of denials could’ve gone on until the end of time… Mordegrid foresaw such an outcome and a new approach came to him, he sharpened his gaze and cocked his head.

“You’ve said Brainz was ‘very sorry’ for what he did- but what exactly was he sorry  _ for?  _ What had he shared with you? The whole reasoning behind his persecution, why we’re all here tracking mud into your home. I really want to know what he told you.”

Try as Toriel might to defend Brainz, Mordegrid caught her in a spot that she had nothing to come back with. Except for the fact that-

“He has. Not told me  _ anything  _ pertaining to that. Not a word.”

Somehow, Mordegrid wasn’t expecting that, he crossed his arms.

“Really? Wow, I’m actually surprised, he usually spins some kind of sugar coated tale for you-...  **Do you** **_*want*_ ** **to know what he’s** **_actually_ ** **done?”**

The room felt so much smaller, suffocating and claustrophobic when all the anxieties piled into it. Toriel had accepted that she would never learn anything from the most mysterious human that had ever fallen down, she had swallowed all of the doubt and now it was coming back up. A healthy and normal her would say no without hesitation, but her conscience was cloudy and her SOUL felt clammy. Everything started to darken into obscurity, mind for Mordegrid and herself. Strange ownerless voices daring to protest. They didn’t want her to know, but Mordegrid  _ did  _ and he would put them to rest. 

“Everyone who watches the news is allowed to know, everyone is  _ supposed  _ to know. And  _ she  _ of all people is  _ entitled  _ to the truth!” 

Toriel would be stuck in this cold and uncertain place forever if she declined…

“T e l l m e . . . ”

But where she ended up next…  **She should’ve said ‘NO’.**

  
  


Nothing could’ve prepared her for the storm unleashed in her home, phrases and words of such vile nature and horrible implications that tore and bashed into the walls and floors. A deafening whirlwind of violence, a tornado of hatred: while the man in blue stood at the center of it, shouting above the vengeful winds. 

**_MURDERS OF ALL DEGREES_ **

**_TRAFFICKING OF WEAPONS, DRUGS, EXPLOSIVES, AND PEOPLE!_ **

**_BOMBINGS, ARSON, GASSING, KIDNAPPING._ **

The accusations, they tore jagged and festering gashes that bled onto the walls and imbued them with a blaring RED color that soon infected the floor. Toriel shouted back, desperate to stop the lieutenant: she yelled, she objected, she denied and  _ denied  _ and  **_denied._ ** But she just couldn’t keep up and eventually the words found their way through and dug into her like knives. Mordegrid found the holes in her defense and sought to widen them. Jumping just in front of her and pointing right into her face. 

“ **_The terrorist organization that HE commands is responsible for THOUSANDS of innocent DEATHS, but he alone attones for HUNDREDS of them! People slain in their own beds, left rotting in their homes for their families to find!, burning to crisp inside their own cars!, dead in the streets!”_ **

The reddened walls began to shift, lighter and darker shades of the evil color began to paint lucid scenes. Horrible depictions that followed everything Mordegrid told Toriel. The screaming winds obeyed his stories and sought to mimic the ghastly sounds they made. 

Toriel could see them all, her eyes were forced open: her ears refused to stop listening. People falling over, the repeated and rapid roar of thunder and explosions, indistinct furious and terrified shouts and screams. 

“ **_Many of his killings were COPS. If you’re unfamiliar: people who have dedicated and given their lives to protect others. Anybody who has tried to stop him, he cuts them down without MERCY. Countless dead, dozens within SECONDS of each other-”_ **

**11-99 OFFICER DOWN, OFFICER NEEDS ASSISTANCE**

**OFFICER IN DANGER, OFFICER IN DANGER**

**IT HURTS SO MUCH I CAN’T BREATHE**

**IT BURNS**

**HE PLANTED BOMBS, IT’S A TRAP, ABORT!**

**I CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS.**

“STOP IT! STOP IT!” 

**CHILDREN LEFT WITHOUT THEIR MOMS AND DADS. PARENTS** **_BURYING_ ** **THEIR OWN KIDS.** **_HE’S MURDERED CHILDREN!_ **

All the ravages of sound stopped, the reddened home turned black. A frail voice echoed into the emptiness.

“Children?...”

**_Child Murdering Fuck._ **

The familiar room came in, the place never desired to be visited again… sunken into the depths of trauma and soul ravaging nightmares. The child was hunched onto the floor, crying. 

  
  


**_“MOMMY, DADDY… PLEASE HELP ME, I’M SCARED.”_ **

Nobody came, nobody was coming to help him. 

**_“IT’S ALL JUST A BAD DREAM, I WANT TO WAKE UP.”_ **

The weapon was raised into the air, it bore its murderous gaze on the wailing child.

**_“I’m so… A L O N E.”_ **

The trigger was pulled, he was dead.

“I just wanted to help, Mom... Chara and I.  **_j u s t w a n t e d t o h e l p . . .”_ **

**_BRAINZ WASN’T HERE._ **

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very sorry this took over a month to come to you.
> 
> Don't blame the chapter, it's on me for being lousy and distracted.   
> I will try not to allow myself to dawdle again. 
> 
> Hope this was worth the wait.
> 
> -Bad Dreems


	24. 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They all leave me in the end.  
> I wish I was back here with you.
> 
> I cannot even save one.  
> I could never be saved.
> 
> You promised.  
> I lied.
> 
> I hurt you.  
> I'm used to it.
> 
> You left me to die.  
> You chose to stay.
> 
> Do you really hate me that much?  
> I don't hate you...

It was funny in the ‘not funny at all’ kind of way that the boss monster could intimidate the US army simply by ‘ugly crying’. Was seeing her upset bothering them? Or was it simply that ‘monsters don’t cry’ and being proven wrong was unsettling? Toriel couldn’t actually see all the unpleasant looks she was getting, the flood of tears made it hard to see _anything_ really. 

“It’s not your fault, ma’am.”

Mordegrid would repeat that mantra from behind, hoping it would do anything to make Toriel feel any better. He was a good guy even though he broke her heart like this. None of the soldiers seemed anything but indifferent, they would sit and wait for this ‘episode’ to pass. Mordegrid wouldn’t try to ‘hurry her up’ or anything like that, he even quelled some of the audible impatience from the rest of the humans.

On the twelfth pass of wiping her eyes, Toriel’s claws were too soaked to be of use drying herself. A handkerchief would be placed in her grip, courtesy of the police lieutenant.

“Here, this’ll help.” 

Toriel did not wish to make redundant the kind gesture, so she somehow managed to contain herself enough to be functional in talking.

“Thank you.”

A quivering phrase of gratitude while handing the damp cloth back.

“It’s ok, keep it in case you still need it.” 

He even flashed a warm humble smile for her, the first time she had ever seen the corners of his mouth rise. It made Toriel feel worse, just considering she made this man’s life so much harder. 

“How could I have been so. So… **_stupid_** ** _??”_**

[My loneliness...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gABres1r4E)

  
  
  


Some kind of voodoo nightmare speak, someone was spouting insane babble from god knows where. You cannot make any sense of it.

**_They told me stories, Brainz… Horrible. Horrible stories._ **

**I should’ve done more, I have failed…**

  
  


Of the terrible broth of feelings curdling inside of her, finding the right words was more than difficult. “Stupid” may not have been appropriate but it was how she felt and she couldn’t think of anything else. So Toriel asked that question straight to Mordegrid, it couldn’t have been rhetorical, not with a broken heart still cutting her up inside. 

“Hey, c’mon now: don’t be like that to yourself.” 

Toriel _was_ going to beat herself up for it, she was starting to feel the singing touch of anger underneath all the sogginess and sadness. Only anger for herself though, not a single sliver reserved for Brainz. She was only sad that she couldn’t help him, and that feeling did not change at all. It was only present for different reasons now: enabling his violent and dubious tendences and indulging his bad habits was the farthest she could go from ‘helping’ him. 

“Like I said, it’s not your _fault,_ Toriel. God can’t blame you for being a kind soul- actually, I’m sorry: the- _concept_ of god, that’s ah- are you familiar with that?” 

Joylessly, kind of grimly. 

**“Yes.** We are mindful of Catholicism _._ You do not need to worry for our ‘Impure SOULS’.”

“Uhh what? I’m sorry- what’re you saying? I’m not-”

“Lunezo, you gave her enough on her plate, I don’t think shellin yer religion is gonna _help.”_

Mordegrid had to digress to Pailurn for just a moment, doubling down on his assertive tone.

“I’m **_not_ ** . I’m not even _religious,_ I was just asking if she was familiar so I wouldn’t _confuse_ her… But OK! Whatever.” 

Back to Toriel, back to his calm demeanor.

“Anyway, I’m telling you, you did nothing wrong- and you’re not in _trouble_ or anything.”

Irritating drawl from behind.

“I wouldn’t say that’s your call to-”

And a whip around, angry.

“Stop! For one freaking minute, can you refrain from the snide remarks? For God’s sake she’s been through enough already, she doesn’t need a _bully_ right now!”

The captain went on the defensive.

“Well you’re the one who went all ‘possessed _lawyer’_ on her! ‘ _RAAGH!_ Brainz did _this!_ And _that!_ He’s a monster _Yaaaaargh!’”_

Mordegrid made an audible and semi-infuriated grunt, everyone could hear all the frustration he was holding back in his voice.

“( ~~Whatt’re you~~ ~~**_5_ ** years old?!) ~~ You are making this _SO_ much harder! You brought me here so I could continue my work, so let me **_work!”_ **

“ _Very Well,_ **_goooo_ ** right ahead! Please, work! SOrrrr _eeee!_ But sheesh, Morbid: I brought you here as a specialist, not my _mother._ You oughta condone yourself and yourself _alone….”_

The argument was concluded with a long and embittered sigh from Mordegrid before he finally got back to Toriel, starting with a close whisper.

“Well look, I’m sorry I had to break it to you like that. But having the displeasure of knowing everything I know about him. I had to get you out of his _conditioning…_ **Before he indirectly makes you into a victim.**

He whispered that last part too, making a subtle eye movement toward all the soldiers and their impatient guns. Mordegrid cleared his throat and teased with this shirt collar, giving himself more space in there to raise his voice back for the whole room.

“One of his rare traits that comes to shine in situations like yours is his cunning manipulative nature. I-it means that the few cases where he doesn’t flat out _murder_ someone in contact with him- which I cannot stress how **rare** this is. I’ve been pursuing him since two thousand and **_six-_ **uh, you guys keep track of time?”

His stumbling and unsureness lead to a moment without words, not long enough to make that question anything but rhetorical though because Mordegrid cleared his throat again and required some confidence in his speech. 

“I’ve been pursuing him for a long time, we’ll keep it simple, and _ah-_ in all those years and hapless people. He has only left a total of _four_ alive for us to find.”

Mordegrid saw another layer of hopelessness and despair in Toriel’s eyes, he just nodded joylessly to confirm what he said. 

“But even then, they may as well have been dead. Two of them were killed by the very team come to rescue them… whatever Brainz wrapped into their heads made them point a gun at us. One of them survived and is now serving a life sentence-”

* * *

**_Assault with a deadly weapon._ **

**_Attempted murder of a police officer._ **

**_Illegal possession of a firearm._ **

**_If your age wasn’t a factor, 25 to life would be an inevitability._ **

**So much worse than death… it makes you** **_think_ ** **of death, it’s all you can think of. It makes you** **_wish_ ** **for death, that it would just** **_come_ ** **already. You sit and you rot and you sit and you rot and you** **_sit_ ** **and you** **_rot_ ** **and you sit and rot and sit and rot and sit and rot and you** **_ROT_ ** **and you** **_SIT_ ** **and you** **_SIT_ ** **and ROT and-**

**_Do you have ANYTHING to say in your defence?_ **

**Just kill me already, don’t make me wait.**

**Death over life.**

**YOU MOTHERFUCKER, YOU’RE DEAD.**

* * *

“- _exterior._ Saw you cared about him that much when he was nothin but a nameless stranger to you-”

Toriel came back from the dark with a terrible shiver that paused the man speaking to her. 

“Whoa- are you _okay?”_

She was quickly becoming more frightened of herself and these ‘flashes’, but just could not fathom bringing them to the attention of the crew in her home. Even with her voice shuddering and marred by lingering sniffles, Toriel lied again.

“Y-yes. I am just… I did not think my heart could still ache so much. I am sorry, Mr Mordegrid. I never meant to cause such harm to you…”

That bubbled to the surface, she could not lie about how awful she felt for him.

He should’ve been mad at her, Mordegrid should’ve been yelling and cursing her out for impeding his lifelong goal, but he was only getting upset at her eagerness to hate herself. 

“Hey, _hey!_ That’s enough of that, okay? There was no way in hell you could’ve known, if anything: I couldn’t be more relieved that you haven’t been _harmed._ We are here to _help_ you-”

Mordegrid actually turned his head to a very disinterested looking army captain who was muttering into his receiver. 

“-right, Captain?” 

Pailurn was caught off guard and made it obvious he tuned out from the conversation some time ago. Regardless,

“W-huh?- Uh-y-ye-yeah, absolutely.” 

He went back to his business without even considering Mordegrid wanted him further. 

While Mordegrid was going to sigh and perhaps scold the CO again- **_Toriel had something she wanted to say to the captain. Her words were as cold as she felt- just for him._ **

“You are going to kill him-”

_That_ got Pailurn’s attention, his full undivided attention as he slowly looked at Toriel. 

“- **_aren’t you…_ **” 

**They want to** **_KILL_ ** **me, you fucking IDIOT!**

  
  
  


Did she even have to ask? Toriel was sure of this as soon as she saw everybody, all the trouble they went to get here. This was really a matter of how trustworthy the captain really was. 

Mordegrid did try to mediate this and change the subject but Pailurn quieted him and stepped up to Toriel. 

“No no, it’s fine- I’m s’posed to up n ask you ‘just where did you get _that_ idea in your head?’ but it looks like we’re all on the same page on that ‘child’ of yours. So I’mma tell you that it’s likely, if not _guaranteed.”_

Another needle stabbed through Toriel’s heart, it wouldn’t have found its way unless she believed him as much as she did. 

“C’mon! Is that really _appropriate-_ R- **_*SIR*???”_ **

“What? Why are we going to _lie_ to Toriel here? We all know how _violent_ and _psychotic_ he is. You spent the last ten minutes proving just that- we know for sure he ain’t fixin to go down without a _fight._ B’sides. I don’t think that _Toriel_ much appreciates bein lied to n left for dead either.”

What Toriel felt didn’t matter, she would never let it matter. Despite everything that Brainz had apparently done to her, she’d forgive him and see him back without ever forming a grudge. She was just sad that it had to be this way. Toriel could’ve told Pailurn that she didn’t care, she could’ve begged and pleaded for them to spare him. Toriel could’ve extorted a _promise_ out of them- but she already realized that any promise related to her would never come true. Her hopes were futile, and her dreams were long gone. 

The pain inside of her was going to last until she was gone, only ebbing to a newfound numbness that was spreading from her fading SOUL. This was what it felt like- the negative sensation where your body, starved of hope and devoid of love, wants to give up. Toriel was ready to fall down, right here and now. She even desired to an extent that Brainz _did_ kill her, so she wouldn’t have to feel this way anymore. But no… Toriel couldn’t go just yet, she still had a purpose. A burning sensation inside of her kept the numbness from going any further. 

Mordegrid and Pailurn started squabbling again while she sunk into her thoughts, but Toriel would not have to speak up too much to get them to stop. 

“-what about the EMP?”

“What _about_ the EMP? Why are you bringing this up now?”

With a low, droning voice and an affixed gaze to show how dead inside she felt. Toriel stopped trying to control the tears and began to speak slowly.

“I have asked you. If you planned to kill Brainz. Because- I need to inform you. That there are unseen _consequences_ if you _end his life…”_

* * *

  
  


Toriel told them everything; about the human-monster war… relevant to the reason it _began._ Starting by reciting that one excerpt from her book, the same one engraved into the wall of Waterfall. 

_Humans are unbelievably strong, it would take the SOUL of nearly every monster… just to equal the power of a single human SOUL._

_But humans have one weakness. Ironically it is the strength of their SOUL. Its power allows it to persist outside of the human body, even after death._

_If a monster defeats a human, they can take its SOUL. A monster with a human SOUL. “A horrible beast with unfathomable power.”_

“The Roman Catholic Church saw this. As the ultimate _sin._ An affront to _God._ Our ability to take and harness the souls of his children, to _‘deny their passage into his eternal kingdom’_ made us _abominations_ outside of his will. They set out to _destroy_ all monsters, to purge our kind from the face of the earth.”

Toriel was able to describe to the humans the details of a Crusade that preceded ‘The Crusades’ by ten years at the least. Depicting the attempted genocide by the insrumountable forces wearing the red crucafix, the scant survivors fleeing and taking to the ocean… followed by the inevitable imprisonment here. Being that there was limited time, she had to overlook such quantities of details. Maybe at a later time... 

At no point was she interrupted in her story, she was only asked one question during one of her long pauses. 

**Were you there when this happened?**

_“_ No, I was born underground. I have no experiences on the surface. I have only the recollections passed down onto me.” 

While the concept of such longevity was outlandish for humans with their relatively short life spans, a boss monster like Toriel could easily exist to live through the crusade and tell the story now… Which led her to the final part of her tale, the whole _reason_ she was telling it in the first place. 

“His name is **ASGORE…”**

  
  


* * *

It wasn’t too hard to remember everything in the end, after all… Toriel had spoken of all this before to another grown and rough looking human who wore a big purple coat. Well… with the exception of the part where the lonely boss monster peers into her own sorrow and spills her relationship with the king. Nobody should’ve learned about this as Toriel wanted no part or affiliation with Asgore or anything he was doing but she broke the silence on the facts for the military. They were here to help, and they could use all the help in the world to do so. The only thing Toriel did not bring up… couldn’t have mattered. There was no reason to her to tear further open her untreated wounds, not when she finally stopped seeing his face everywhere. 

At last, she was able to stop speaking: her body flat out refused to say anything further. Toriel slumped back into her seat, feeling like she weighed a million pounds. The only thing she could _feel_ anymore except the burning was how sick she felt. But why though? The retribution for all monsters was crowded into her home, they were going to free everyone and prove that humanity wasn’t entirely cruel! But she also was accepting that her latest ‘child’ was going to die, no… Toriel was giving these soldiers _permission_ to kill him, she was _encouraging_ it! In fact, she encouraged everyone else to die before Brainz when she _failed_ to protect them! Just another example of her same failures, bringing out the most grand and soul-wrenching one for the final time it would happen. Same outcome, different reason.

The _monsters_ weren’t going to kill Brainz, his own actions were. But now, his death couldn’t be certain anymore, there was no saying who would get to him first… OR…. if he was already gone after rolling over Asgore. Toriel really didn’t know _what_ she wanted for him, she still “ _wanted”_ for him though, even as he broke her heart and left her for dead. Toriel didn’t _want_ him to kill Asgore, but she didn’t _want_ him to die. She didn’t _want_ him to hurt anybody, but she didn’t want any harm for _him._ Asgore and Brainz couldn’t get both of their ways… but with these humans now, **none of them were going to win.**

  
  


“ _I…_ don’t _freak’n_ believe it…”

Pailurn was the first to rise: throughout the entire story, everybody had taken to sitting down on the floor with their legs crossed (Mind for Mordegrid who was leaning against the doorway). He paced halfway around the room and took a sharp breath.

“ _WELL then!_ This’ll complicate things a fair bit.”

He nodded to himself and sniffed.

“ _Y’know._ Not like this wasn’t _already_ complicated. With the discovery of the _cryptids_ and thiss’um _lost civilization?_ And _nowwwwww-”_

The captain was hopelessly nonplussed, nothing he could do or say would hide it. It wasn’t like he really felt like trying as he looked to his hired specialist with wide eyes.

“- your _guy._ Is about to put the whole world in danger.” 

Mordegrid’s jaw hadn’t quite been able to close for most of the story, it wasn’t agape or anything but he was also perturbed. A couple of forced blinks and he reluctantly started to talk with the same kind of expression Pailurn wore.

“Are we. _Actually_ buying this? I’m not trying to be sarcastic- I’m just- not sure what to think right now.” 

  
  


Pailurn got louder, and more worked up.

“I dunno- call me a psycho but I don’t think the walking talking goat thing is lying!”

Mordegrid was in denial, not out of choice.

“Alright, _calm down_ now. We’re all just getting spooked here- right now _logic_ isn’t exactly in good supply and we’re jumping to conclusions. Let’s get back to _earth_ now. For all we know, this could just be what he _told_ her to tell _us.”_

Weird how the dynamic shifted as it did: with Pailurn believing her without question and _Mordegrid_ being the one to try and discredit Toriel. He wasn’t doing it on purpose though, poor thing was at the end of his rope. 

“Mordy…” 

He lashed out.

“No _cmon_ now! This is _not_ something you see in the real world, this is _comic book_ crap! Shit like _supervillains_ and megalomaniacs with superpowers don’t _exist_ . It’s just _smoke_ and mirrors! And-”

The man was breathing out of whack and sweating heavily. Eventually his words couldn’t be understood too well as they started to melt and merge together. He was coming to terms with everything but his body was not. It wasn’t like he was alone either, the quiet discipline of all the soldiers broke and an overall anxious muttering started to grow. Mordegrid’s loud and blatant display was not helping anyone. 

‘Oh. _god._ What have I just done?’

Toriel’s face was stuck as something disgusted, being that she was observing a terrible mess. The chaos was about to go full blown but then a jarring _booming_ voice shook everyone silent. 

“ **_ALRIGHT_ ** **THAT’S ENOUGH!”**

All the confusion was gone from the captain, he regained control of himself and then all of his comrades. With the room quieted and all its attention on him, Pailurn scanned the entire room, treating everyone to his stern gaze. He meant to go for Toriel now, but he digressed with a hyperventilating police lieutenant.

“ _You,_ you take yourself a seat and you slow down your breathing.”

One of the soldiers would usher Mordegrid to the dining room table where another surrendered their chair for him. With that out of the way, Pailurn stepped up to Toriel and stared right into her. The way he spoke, it was almost as if his words could arrest her. She had never felt so intimidated by him. 

“You’re telling me, the current leader down here- your ‘ex’ is planning on starting a _war_ with everybody. And that. He needs to absorb the souls of _seven_ human beings to be able to pull this off, that if he _does_ he’s going to be able to _win_ this war of his. Assumin, _one_ soul makes you into some goliath, seven and you’re unstoppable…”

He paused, still retaining eye contact. It was kind of horrible, Toriel wished solely he would look away because for every second he looked into her, it felt like shards of glass were cutting into her from the inside. She just speculated that maybe he wanted her to answer him and was about to do so to get him to stop, when Pailurn progressed with another question,

“And he has gotten himself _six_ of these souls so far, making _Brainz_ the last one he’d need.”

Another period of insufferable silence and staring. Toriel developed this strange and barely containable urge to just _push_ him away… only beaten by the fact that she was also petrified by his gaze. She would do anything to make it stop.

**Everything to stop him.**

**STOP HIM.**

**_He is going to destroy you._ **

**_He must not be allowed._ **

**_I’m going to die here…_ **

**_I’m going to die._ **

**_//-----------=--//_ **

“Yes.”  
  


The murderous gaze was gone but the joy would never return to the captain’s face. He would give a slight nod and say something before straightening himself back up.

“Alright then, thank you for letting me know.” 

He would start by repeating himself, but louder for everyone to hear: the command in his voice reached every corner of the dwelling and further.

“ **_Alright then listen up, people!_ ** **There’s been a development and we gotta** **_change_ ** **our mission a little bit!-”**

Suddenly, Pailurn ‘code-switched’ to some kind of dialect unfamiliar to Toriel. She could understand about half of the words he said, but then would come others that were more akin to ‘noise’. This honestly should have been impossible considering how human/monster audible communication worked out. With both parties hearing only their native tongue being spoken, there should’ve been nothing either would fail to understand. In this case though, it was like a prank call and a bad line. 

“Situation… Foxtrot-Hotel… Getting kinetic… Hot-zone. Shield and assess. No, **_six_ ** it’s goddamn, fuckin **_six.”_ **

It was almost like the words themselves wanted her to understand, but the speaker was making a different kind of effort… he wouldn’t even look at her anymore. That was fine though, anything to avoid that damned gaze. As ‘another layer of’ unsettling as this was, Toriel was able to concern herself with something else as the bad mix of words became muffled noise. The only other person in the room who could not understand Pailurn (at least fully) was exhibiting signs of an impending panic attack. 

Toriel knew panic attacks, she learned everything she knew from one of her children: specifically how everything she initially tried for comfort was not appropriate for such episodes. In fact, this knowledge may have saved her from Brainz’s wrath, giving the cornered animal space before it lashed out and slew her. 

**I never would have done a thing like that to you…**

[Make him comfortable.](https://youtu.be/g4d_tbIGUMA)

  
  


Mordegrid was shaking in his chair and muttering into his hands before they found themselves firmly attached to his temples. Toriel could hear him even over Pailurn’s loud voice.

“Ohh god- he really did it. Ohh god, why god? He really _did_ it. It’s on me, it’s all on me. I can’t-.”

Nevermind her own ailments, Toriel could not bear to see anybody suffering like this. She overlooked her mandatory rest in her chair and swiftly rose from it. It only took a second for one of her guards to break his attention from his leader… 

“Hey- _HEY!”_

One weapon pointed at her turned into a dozen once everyone noticed, Pailurn stopped but only for a moment. His expression turned to blatant anger and he stomped towards Toriel.

“The fuck do you think yer _doing?”_

“I was just-”

Toriel began to blurt out, but Pailurn wasn’t done yet: he also wasn’t mad at _her._

“Private, lower your _got-dayum_ weapon, now! All of yous! Stand _down_ I said!”

Everybody did just that, some were reluctant and the first one to aim his weapon had a retort.

“But _sir,_ you told me if she-.”

“ _Ay-ay-ay-ay-aie!_ That’s enough! Why don’t we stop treating our _‘friend’_ here like the guy who’s trying to kill the fuck’n world! Ah? Maybe she has a _reason_ she would like to get up.”

Realizing _now_ it was her turn to say something, Toriel shyly but decisively stated her intention.

“Mr. Mordegrid, is enduring a. Panic attack. I would like to help him.”

She even pointed his way, further directing everyone onto him. 

Mordegrid jittered up in posture, quick to try and politely rebuke her.

“What? _Nn-no,_ I’m- (ugh) I’m fine. _Don’t._ Waste your time on me.”

He tried to smile and even chuckle to assuage any suspicions, only proving Toriel further. 

Same occurrence as before; silent room full of staring and anxiety, making Toriel wonder if she should’ve opened her mouth at all.

“See? Like she said, lett’er talk to him, we got more _important_ things on our mind right now. Leave’er to it.” 

Just like that, the room was back to indecipherable jargon and the occasional glance at Toriel. Most of the soldiers who were idling in the dining room moved closer to their boss, leaving Mordegrid mostly alone with the monster. Very unusual that Pailurn, who was one of the first people to point a gun at Toriel, would act to keep them away from her. Perhaps she had accrued the wrong kind of image for him.

**_You’re ‘SUCH GOOD PALS WITH THEM?!_ **

**_You don’t know NOTHING!_ **

Well… at least she could start helping Mordegrid, who became more agitated from this outcome. He was starting on a retort to Pailurn but had to give it up when the monster approached him.

“What’re you doin- I’m _fine_ -”

He had no choice but to deal with Toriel, Mordegrid just sighed angrily: trying to act normal even as his breaths refused to slow down. 

“Look, I _appreciate_ you making everyone think I’m losing it- but I really am _fine-_ you can leave me alone. Why don’t you go back to dealing with your own problems?”

“I wished to _thank_ you, actually. Mr. Mordegrid.”

Mordegrid squinted and his tone lurched to something else. 

“ _Thank_ me? For _what?_ What’d I do.”

“For opening my eyes and…”

Toriel lowered her voice to a whisper, making not one but two suspect glances to all the people behind her.

“Protecting me from them…” 

  
  


“Oh…”

He paused, showing a ‘change in gears’ that Toriel was looking for. Mordegrid’s breathing started to become less audible. He shook his head and his open palm to Toriel though.

“N-no, don’t worry about it. I didn’t do much, they just had to come to their senses: I just made it faster… **But** it’s not like that is going to matter in the _slightest_ now, is it?” 

Toriel tilted her head some, having a single sniffle in the process. 

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? Just- _that the whole world is gonna be in danger?_ Because of a guy that _I_ was supposed to stop? It’s a little hard to think of the little things when we could all _die.”_

“You should not blame yourself for what has happened, this is what you have told _me_.”

He cringed and struggled to form his words for a moment, his hands were shaking and moving all over the place with their nervous energy. 

“Yeah _but-_ I-iit’s _different_ here. Y-you **_you._ ** Had absolutely _no_ way and no _how_ to know about this. This just up and happened to you one day and you’re still coming to terms with what happened. _Me_ on the other hand: I’ve spent most of my _life_ pursuing him. I should know everything that there is _to_ know about him and I don’t even have his real _name!”_

“His name is not ‘Brainz?’ or… ‘Subject Omega?’.”

She could not quite remember the last title, even then: Toriel did not intend to distract Mordegrid with that question. He shook his head.

“Suspect Omega, but no. His real name is neither of those, but can you see what I mean? I dedicate my life to stopping him, using so many resources and wasting so much goddamn- sorry. I waste _so_ much time and it’s all for nothing. No matter what I do, what I try: he _always_ finds a way to beat me, and it’s always something _so_ unlikely that I would sit at my desk for _hours_ on end just _torturing_ myself asking ‘ _HOW?_ How is this possible?’. It’s like he’s always known what was going to happen and what he would _do_ before I even _think_ of the plan.”

Mordegrid forced himself to grin incredulously at Toriel, just for a second. He then sighed again and drooped his head. 

“For once, I thought we got him by surprise. He made a mistake and got caught, and just started _running._ I thought ‘This was it’ he had nowhere left to go…”

His head shot up for a subtle bout of outrage.

“And what does he do? He disappears through the _floor,_ which I _still_ have _no_ idea how that works, and makes us discover… _you._ But then _that’s_ not enough for him, so he falls into place in some ancient _revenge_ scheme that can mean the end of the world! And it’s on me! It’s _my_ responsibility, Toriel. Not the captain, not the military, and not _you._ It’s on _me_ and all people are gonna know if they die is that _I_ failed to prevent it! It’s just-”

He devolved into more sounds of pent up frustration crashing into his tongue, making it impossible to tell what he was saying but communicating perfectly just how stressed he was. Toriel wanted to give him a hug, she always did: it was always her first intention for anybody feeling so awful… but she had already learned not to trust her instincts anymore. Gone were her days of coddling and loving: all she could do now was make everyone comfortable. As ‘comfortable’ as you could be in this situation, with inevitability creeping in. For Mordegrid though, all Toriel could do was listen.

“-The best thing is that the only way people know about me and my ‘life’s work’ is by all the _failures._ The only evidence that I’ve actually _done_ anything are all the times it didn’t _work.”_

Then he pitched up his voice and tried to feign being happy, for sarcasm’s sake of course.

“Heyy, that’s all my life amounts to! Chasing and failing to catch one piece of shit person! That’s it! Nothing else. I have no _friends,_ I never gave myself time to start a _family:_ I-i always wanted to have a little girl that I could sit with, with my wife and just _be_ together. _Instead_ I just-.”

He stopped himself and apologized for venturing to where he did, opting to put the topic to rest by asking Toriel something. 

“Can you know what it’s like to dedicate your _entire_ **_life_ ** to something, some _one_ even: only for it to be for _nothing?_ Gone, everything gone and like it never even _mattered?_ Nobody is going to remember it except you? And you’re just _alone…_ thinking about it for the rest of your life?”

The numbness inside of her nearly covered everything, but it could _never_ mask the pain that arose from the place Mordegrid took her. The very same home with the very same walls and colors… just lacking the same emptiness. Toriel could have broken down crying again, she could’ve held her stance but begrudge some tears, she could’ve told Mordegrid just how apt his question was. But that wouldn’t have been wise for now,

“Yes, I do know. What that is like…”

Would have to suffice. 

They both shared a much less hostile gaze with each other, a mutual look of saddened inquiry only sourced from the regrets they inherently shared. They understood each other only now, without words or context, seeing the hurt inside of each other that only appeared for those who felt it too. Mordegrid had finally slowed his breathing and calmed down when Toriel was grabbed by her shoulder from behind and she jumped with a small squeal. 

Pailurn was the culprit as he stepped back, done with the little sermon done in his language and wanting more information from Toriel.

“Oh, sorry to scare ya: but we need’ta know something.” 

“What is it?”

“Brainz. He fell down here. _Two_ days ago, right? And you said he was here for bout, _twelve_ hours or so, yeah? Before he left?”

She nodded.

“Asgore is on the other end of this place, you’re familiar with the layout. How _long_ would it take you to get there? _Assuming_ you don’t know where you’re goin, and you’re makin just about every other wrong turn and guesstimate on your way?”

Ok, so Toriel wasn’t exactly ready for a question like that. Sure she was familiar with this place… _once upon a time._ But that could be further hampered by whatever changes the king had made to further deter humans. 

“Uhhh- oh dear, that is a trifle _difficult_ to _answer_ exactly.”

“Spitball it, just gimme an estimate, the first one that pops into yer head.”

He was pushing for a quick answer and was not going to give Toriel the time needed to properly think about it. She was not exactly thrilled with the idea of _guessing_ on the fact that she could end up _wrong_ in the end… Toriel was never _wrong_ after all. 

“ _Well,_ the Underground is not exactly a _large_ place by any means, but-.”

“Just gimme something, c'mon let’s **_go!!”_ **

The incessant pressure and harshness squeezed the premature thoughts out of Toriel.

“ _One cycle!-_ A day! Twenty-four hours! This is assuming he fights his way through everyone… Oh my stars, anybody who stands in his way is going to be _killed…_ ohh what have I done?”

Toriel was not left to wallow in her own despair though.

“ _24 hours??_ He could be _gone_ right about now! And you said there’s another access point after the throne room?”

“Yes. It is the only way which we can leave.”

Of what Toriel shared with the military, the entire logistics of the _barrier_ were overlooked entirely. She thought that with all these humans here and working together, there would be no need to cause further alarm with the fact that they were technically trapped. They were going to open the barrier and save all of monsterkind in due time… provided Brainz didn’t usher the end of any civilization. 

Then Mordegrid finally came back into the big conversation, he was feeling better and gave his second opinion.

“But that’s provided that nobody took him down on the _way.”_

Pailurn rolled his head and eyes disbelievingly.

“You kidding me? Out of everything, Brainz has proven most of all that he is _extraordinarily_ hard to kill…”

He would add to that statement in the face of the funny look he got from Mordegrid.

“At least that’s the idea I got from your records, Mr. Mordegrid.” 

Apparently that meant that Pailurn was correct, Mordegrid would not argue with the statement… However he had something to add to it. Holding up a finger to emphasize a point.

“We’re not wrong, but there’s something we’re not considering-”

And he gestured over to the two weapons that had been haphazardly placed onto Toriel’s dining room table. 

“- he was never unarmed when we found him.”

With the captain’s eyes widening slowly-

“Ohh yeah, that’s _riiiight…_ ”

-the room had turned back to Toriel, the eyes and the gaze were burning into her SOUL. The new interrogation started with Pailurn rubbing his chin with the slide of his shiny gun.

“What’s the story behind this anyway? If you and him were so passive, how on earth do you have his pistol and repeater? There’s no way in hell he just _gave_ them to you.”

What did Toriel do? Well she _lied_ of course… not to the soldiers, she told them the truth of how she lied to Brainz about his most prominent things. Toriel had only the best intentions for her ‘child’, but she still lied in the end and would not forgive herself. Nobody genuinely believed her thoughts on reducing the temptation for violence in Brainz, or how she had him on her mind in doing so. Pailurn and his soldiers were more interested in their theory that Toriel was merely protecting her monster brethren from him by weakening his attack power. 

“Well even without his weapons, he’ll find a way: the guy _always_ does.”

“Yeah… if anything, this’ll just slow him down: but Brainz _will_ adapt. He’ll make use with what he has and finds.”

This seemed to be a perfect opportunity for Toriel to bring up that.

“He… Brainz had a backpack with him, when he fell. It was rather _heavy,_ and made quite a fuss when I picked it up for him. I. I just could not bring myself to look through it, or to _keep it_ from him.”

A collective sigh and some awkward looks but Toriel continued.

“Is there a chance that he may still possess… something _dangerous?”_

“Without a doubt.”

Mordegrid said. 

“What’re we thinkin of?”

Pailurn asked him.

Another sigh through his teeth, Mordegrid rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

“ _Well,_ if we’re goin off on what we _know-”_

He started tapping his forearm with his hand with each thing he listed.

“-We’re talkin; knives, gloves, masks, probably some medical supplies, _ammunition_ for these weapons… won't be any use to him unless he’s got more guns in there, maybe like a _sawed off shotgun?,_ **_explosives_ ** . Absolutely explosives. He’s a master bomb maker, he’s got all kinds of stuff like, grenades, _pipebombs,_ maybe even demolition charges.”

“Christ, this guy travels _prepared._ ”

“And this is just what he was able to salvage from his _car,_ I’m sure there's remnants of more equipment in the wreckage… But it’s safe to assume while he may not be _armed,_ he’s not empty handed in the slightest.” 

And Pailurn, now on board again, followed with the final words on the matter of _Brainz._

“There’s no way then, that he’s goin down to anybody except _Asgore…_ God, I’ll almost feel bad for anybody who crosses him. It’s gonna be _bad._ No matter what they’re trained to do, they ain’t ready for what _he’s_ packin.”

“ _Nobody is…_ ”

“-We’re getting everyone moving here. Mobilize everybody, start getting our teams down here one by one and start lowering the supplies, we’re establishing a command post not too far from the drop point…. _Yes,_ I said _everybody_ we need to cover as much ground as possible and we need to have this place clear by _yesterday._ Do I make myself clear?” 

Pailurn was speaking into a radio that he wore on his uniform, most of the soldiers had been told to move from the small home, none were ordered to go into the basement… not yet. 

“Sergeant Kabou- Come in… Get your men to the depot and start shovin out everything. Weapons, _ammo…_ we’re gonna need it-”

All Toriel could do in this buzzing hive of camouflaged bees was stand there meekly, but she could not help but hear everything Pailurn said and further could not help-

**_Seeing all those guns and bullets strewn onto the floor next to the body parts of the people who wielded them._ **

**_Soaked with blood, sticky with dust._ **

**_Guns guns guns! Glorious guns!_ **

**_The only GOOD thing that resulted from this!_ **

**_Won’t you use them till they’re DEAD_ **

**_Will you put one to your HEAD?_ **

**_If they were here to save all of you, WHY DID THEY BRING AN ARMORY DOWNSTAIRS?_ **

_“Why are you bringing more weapons down here??? No!”_

Before she realized it, Toriel had pailurn by his coat. He broke away from her as violently as he did decisively. Toriel had to apologize for her rash action, sensing the lowered weapons in the room perking up. 

“I am sorry, I did not mean to-”

Nothing she said was going to do her any good in that regard, so onto her more pressing question… no, it wasn’t a question. 

“Please, do _not_ do this. Do not indulge in the _violence!_ ”

Mordegrid responded like this.

“What are you _talking_ **about?** What’s the matter?”

Pailurn knew something he didn’t, exactly what Toriel was afraid of. He was brushing himself off from where she touched him. Sounding rather indignant. 

“Well I hate to break it to you… but you’ve described an extremely hostile situation, we’re going to be put out there against enemies we’ve never seen nor _heard_ of before. _As WELL_ as the very dangerous man that got us down here in the first place. The area is alien, we have no capabilities for support and the very fate of humanity could be banking on the success of our mission. So _yeah-_ I’m making sure my men are armed to the _teeth._ Do you gotta problem with that?”

“Alright c’mon now, lay off of-”

Toriel did not let Mordegrid fight for her this time, as scared as she was: her intentions rang true. 

“Well pardon me, but _Yes._ I do! The monsters you will face are not _dangerous!_ Not to _you_ at least! Most of them will have never experienced a battle let alone _dreamed_ of one! Anybody who challenges you, I can _assure_ is confused and will most _certainly not_ understand nor intend the harm they are facing!”

“Toriel-.”

Denied, she kept going, her extant and protective instincts fought on. Toriel’s face was turning a shade of red from how upset she was getting. This was becoming the very same argument that led her to being utterly alone… She was just up against someone more frightening and now pleading for the other side to be spared. 

“You do _not_ need to do this! You do not need to harm _anyone!_ **_Please!_ ** I _beg_ of you! Do not enter this place with the same intention as the person you are seeking! You do not have to bring back the _past!”_

She had so much more to say, and would have ended up on her knees (Which would make her almost as tall as Mordegrid at that point) but Pailurn finally got her to stop.

“ _Alrightalrightalright!_ Just- _hold_ on there! Let’s take a step or two back here! I think we’re goin to the wrong places!”

  
  


He told her… to calm down.

He told her that he was _sorry._

Pailurn Told Toriel _his side of the story._

He used all the right words that hit her in all the softest places, about this ‘family’ of his. He’d do anything to keep them safe, nothing in the world would keep him from looking out for them. He made himself out to be a ‘good guy’. One who would save the day.

It made sense… 

It made too much sense.

It made her think of her own… _family._

It made her _envious._

But When he put it like _that…_ How could Toriel ever argue with him? 

He made her feel almost _content_ for the first time. Like she could ‘trust’ him. 

Could she trust him? She didn’t know…

The way Pailurn softened his voice and coddled her fears and anxieties, Toriel hadn’t felt like this since she was small. It was like the touch from a parent… telling her that everything was going to be OK. 

It felt so wrong…

But could she trust him?

  
  
  


“There is… another way you can reach the capitol. It will be far quicker. If you can muster a boat.” 

She trusted him enough.

  
  


**I trusted him too…**

**_You are… as I was._ **

**_As I am now…_ **

**_You WILL be._ ** **_  
  
_ **

**So wake up.**

**Please, wake up.**

**Wake up, Mom…**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See! I did SOMETHING for the anniversary!
> 
> Happy 5th Undertale!


	25. 16

“-I really wish I could put you at ease more, you gotta trust me that it’ll be fine. You don’t join the National Guard expecting to kill people. The most the guns are going to do is make them look scary.” 

Pailurn glided up to the lieutenant and tapped him on the shoulder, putting an end to the conversation with the monster.

“Alright Mordegrid, we’re leaving. Get yourself together and let’s go.” 

“Huh-what? We are?”

Mordegrid would spin himself around from his seat.

“We’re going back up?”

Pailurn gave a sort of muddled squint with a bit of a scowl, like a stupider question couldn’t have hit his ears.

“What-  _ Noo.  _ We’re goin  _ in!”  _

Mordegrid stammered a little, making a quick glance at Toriel from the other side of the time.

“Ww-we: you’re not gonna stay here and command the operation?”

Pailurn let a large backpack on his shoulder slump to the floor with a sizable  **_-Thud!-_ **

“Oh I’m commanding this here operation, I sure ain’t doing it from  _ here  _ though. (What) Kind of captain sits safe n sound while his men are in the trenches? Not  _ I.” _

Pailurn’s team of elites would be of the later groups to walk through the tunnel to Snowdin, the ‘survey teams’ had already left while the rest were catching up and cluttering up Toriel’s front yard and house with all sorts of gadgets, gizmos, and heavy green trunks. She told them the mess was no bother at all when in reality… it wasn’t like making a fuss over it would accomplish anything. What Toriel really didn’t mind was the bug-eyed expressions directed to her from all the new teams that passed by. The (usually) snide remarks about her appearance could be overlooked too. 

“Now Mordy, I didn’t bring ya here so you could sit here drink’n tea with a monster-”

Which reminded Toriel she failed to offer any accommodations to her…  _ guest- _ Guests? Guests, she guessed. Still, the heartbreaking and terror made her forget her manners. 

“-you’re the expert on trackin him here, s’gonna be hard enough as it is to find him.”

The idea of Mordegrid leaving Toriel did not solely perturb her, it seemed. The way he looked back and forth to his superior and then her, there was a  _ lot  _ of doubt in him. It reminded her of one of the children who showed more concern for  _ her  _ wellbeing above their own. Mordegrid saw the potential mistreatment and he put it down right away, but if he left… he wouldn’t be able to keep protecting her like this. 

Toriel felt a twinge inside of her but she would give her reassuring little smile to the man and tell him without words that it was ‘OK’. She would be just fine here. He had to go, it was his  _ duty  _ after all… perhaps Toriel knew not about honoring ‘duty’. 

“Well are you  _ comin  _ or not?” 

The moment was broken by that prodding voice.

Mordgrid gave Toriel one final glance with the slightest of nods before facing Pailurn again and standing up.

“Alright, let’s go.” 

The backpack was back on the captain’s shoulder and the two men made for the group of four waiting for them by the stairs. Toriel followed only to the main hall to say goodbye, planting herself there with her claws folded together. 

“Are we leaving Toriel alone here, now?”

Asked by the police man. 

“Of  _ course  _ not.”

Remarked Pailurn with a sneer. 

“We’re settin up a post here for supplies and to keep watch on the way we came in.” 

“You’re thinking he might try to come  _ back _ here?”

Mordegrid fastened some kind of bulky vest onto himself, the same ones that all the other soldiers wore while Pailurn held a small knapsack he was carrying for him. 

“You tell  _ me.” _

The bag was given back to Mordegrid and strung onto his back.

“In all the cases where he left someone  _ alive-  _ He usually never came back to  _ check  _ on them or anything, but I guess if things go wrong for him he  _ may  _ try and come back the way he came?  _ Maybe?  _ It’s unlikely at best, he probably figured we’d be waiting for him, I dunno.”

And then he said something quite different.

“I don’t want him coming back and hurting Toriel.” 

He was such a sweetheart… It made her want to tear up in a way she couldn’t ascertain as good or bad. He really cared about her while everybody else seemed indifferent… At the same time, Toriel did not indulge in the thought that Brainz would return. By all means, by the horrible thoughts he infected her with: she wished the same thing for him as all the other children who left her.  **That he would** **_not_ ** **return here.** But in this case, Toriel never wanted to see him again: not out of resentment, not of hatred: just by the fear that she didn’t know what she would do if she saw his face again.

Of course the sentiment was only appreciated by Toriel, Pailurn just rolled his head and eyes once more.

“Uh-huh, yeah: Well he ain’t gonna do that-.”

Then he raised his voice abruptly, still getting a slight cringe from both Toriel and Mordegrid.

“-  **_Corporal Collicks!_ ** ” 

A short and slender kind of man wearing glasses jogged into the room and approached the captain with a hand to his head.

“Aye sir!” 

Pailurn nodded.

“At ease.”

The man lowered his arm and looked up to his Captain, awaiting his orders. His orders followed: 

“Corporal: you are to take possession of this point, designated  **_Alpha._ ** You and your men will remain stationed here monitoring and providing assistance to all teams that pass through. You are to watch over this.  _ Civilian?-.” _

That was the closest Pailurn came to recognizing Toriel as a person.

“-And ensure by  _ no  _ means does anybody returning proceed further than the front yard for resupply. You will report any anomalies or situations directly to Sergeant Lomphetts through channel  _ seventeen. _ Do you understand your orders as given?”

Without any hesitation.

“ _ Yes, sir.”  _

Pailurn gave one more hard nod-

“Very good.”

-and he snapped his fingers a couple of times to signal his group to descend the stairs, he and Mordegrid were the last to go. Toriel gave him a little wave, she could see the frown on Mordegrid’s face deepening before he disappeared beneath the floor. The sound of all the footsteps stopping and the rush of wind from the door closing meant that they were gone.

* * *

This house once packed with over twenty humans was down to one human and one Toriel. As soon as the echo from the door faded, Corporal Collicks slouched away from his perfect posture.

“Awhhh.  _ Fucking  _ hell!”

Ignoring Toriel entirely, the disgruntled soldier threw off his helmet and tossed his weapon onto one of the boxes sitting in the front hall. 

“ _ Guard duty?  _ **Again????** Gah,  _ fuck you _ , Captain!”

He protruded both of his middle fingers at the stairs and shook them all around, making a really exasperated groan to let the rest of his frustration out. 

“Is something the matter?”

Toriel had to inquire, already feeling way lonelier without Mordegrid… yet she felt a little less anxious now that Pailurn was gone. Another voice entering through the doorway though overshadowed her.

“Hey, at least we’re not stuck on the surface.”

Another soldier with fuzzy brown hair strolled in with his weapon and helmet tucked under his arms. He sounded hopeful and had a positive look on his face.

“Yeah, because this is  _ so  _ much better, Steven. I was getting tired of sitting in the sun doing nothing, now I get to do nothing inside of a  _ cave _ while everybody  _ else  _ is having fun…” 

The second soldier just shrugged and relieved himself of his backpack, placing it next to the discarded weapon.

“I don’t know how much “fun” we’re missing out on, but I really don’t mind not having to spend the whole day on my feet with all this crap on my back.”

This man addressed Toriel with a big friendly grin and an outstretched hand.

“Private Eeneyae, you can call me Steven though!” 

What was he doing? Oh! Right, he wanted to do a  _ handshake.  _ That was something people did. Toriel reluctantly surrendered a claw only to see it be shaken rather vigorously. Steven held out an arm to the Corporal.

“This here is Corporal _ Andrew _ Collicks, I’m pretty sure he likes Corporal Collicks better.”

The Corporal scoffed and grumbled softly.

“Andrew’s  _ fine…  _ The captain doesn’t like when we use first names.”

“Well the captain’s not  _ here  _ now is he?”

Steven leaned towards the front entrance.

“ _ Aaaaand _ this is Private Mollomor.”

A more stocky man walked in carrying a large duffel bag, not unlike Brainz’s except it was green. 

“MMn.”

The man dropped the bag and went back outside for more things.

“He’s not much for talking.”

Steven muttered under his breath and shrugged. 

“But uh-  _ yeah.  _ Looks like we’re gonna be your  _ babysitters  _ for the rest of this ordeal!”

The corporal grumbled again. 

* * *

“ **Station Alpha, Station Alpha. This is Papa Whiskey 02, Over.”**

“Papa Whiskey 02, this is Station Alpha, Over.” 

**“Station Alpha, Message from Captain: Tell the next team to deploy in Zone 2. That’s Zone** **_2,_ ** **Over.”**

“Papa Whiskey 02, Wilco.  **Sierra Juliette** is next, deploying in Zone 2, that's  **Sierra Juliette,** Over.” 

**“Station Alpha, Copy that. Over.”**

“Papa Whiskey 02, Am I to give them the greenlight now? Over.”

  
  


There was a longer wait before the next message.

**“Station Alpha, that’s a yes. Send them down.”**

“Wilco, Papa Whiskey 02.”

**“Solid Copy. Out.”**

  
  
  


“Sorry about that, go on?”

Andrew Collicks had stopped speaking to the large and rather loud box sitting atop the dining room table, turning to face Toriel who sat at one end while the other two men sat beside him. 

The monster was prompted to continue their conversation.

“Well. If you may  _ imagine:  _ figuring out the means on how to sustain everyone with such limited resources required nothing short of a miracle settled on a miracle.”

“That’s kind of amazing but I’m not gonna.  _ Lie.  _ And assume everything you said makes any sense I mean-.”

The guy holding the radio receiver laughed a little, not disrespectfully. 

“- Uhh anyway: just gimme a sec.”

And he started fidgeting with the buttons and dials on the box. Steven on the other hand rubbed the back of his neck humbly.

“Gosh y’know tho, you really didn’t have to up and  _ serve us-” _

On the table were plates, teacups, and the mostly unused pie from earlier (Brought back up to the perfect temperature of course).

“- I mean what I’m sayin is  _ you’re too kind,  _ really.”

Toriel felt a little flattered smile creep on her face.

“It was no trouble at all, really. Please, have as much as you desire.”

Mollomor said nothing and shrugged.

“ _ Can do-” _

From Andrew.

“-after the garbage slop they’re feeding us? This is like finding an  _ oasis  _ in the desert. You’re too good.” 

Despite his initial irritation with his assignment, Andrew didn’t seem all too bothered a couple hours later. All the three soldiers showed  _ some  _ level of intimidation or reluctance with Toriel, as did the few teams that passed by but the friendly accommodations and small talk helped her three “guests” relax. It got her mind off of everything else too which made her feel better slightly. 

“Alright though-”

The corporal with the radio muttered.

“-I need another  _ shh.” _

He put his finger to his lips and then replaced it with the microphone. 

“Ground team, this is Station Alpha. Ground team, this is Station Alpha. Over.”

A voice, much less clear and with more audible crackling and interference came back.

**“Ground team here, Station A-pha? -Ver.”**

  
  


“Ground team, Sierra Juliette Has the greenlight to enter, send them down, over.”

A moment of strange distorted noise preceded the next message.

**“Say -gain State- Alpha. Say again, over.”**

Andrew let out a scoff and angrily fidgeted with the radio, putting the microphone down for a moment.

“What’s with all this damn  _ interference?  _ Come  _ oooonn.” _

“I mean we  _ are _ under a mountain.”

Steven remarked as Andrew replaced the microphone and repeated his message slower and with more exaggeration on his words.

“ _ Ground team.  _ Send.  **_Sierra. Juliette_ ** _ down.  _ **_Sierra. Juliette_ ** has the greenlight,  _ over.” _

Some static and then another partially broken up message.

**“Copy, Station Alph- Sierra Juliette- on their way. Standby for call, Over.”**

“Copy, Ground Team. Out.” 

  
  
  
  
  


Steven sat up more in his chair, perturbed.

“Wait,  _ Sierra Juliette? They’re  _ going to be stuck in zone 2?”

“What is Zone 2?”

Toriel asked him.

  
  


Andrew would answer her though.

“Snowdin, I think you said the town was called? We found it easier to break up this place by numerical zones, like the place we’re in is zone ‘1’ everything up until the door to the snow.”

“I see…” 

A lot of things these people did made less than full sense to Toriel. One other example was how the names being mentioned so much like ‘Sierra Juliette’ and ‘Papa Whiskey’ were not names in the traditional sense that they belonged to one person. They were the nicknames for each of the groups of soldiers that passed by. Strange customs.

Steven had a bit of a grump on his face.

“Yeah, and they get to be stuck in the  _ snow  _ all day.”    
  


“May I assume you do not enjoy the cold?”

Asked the Monster.

“Not particularly.”

The private crossed his arms.

Toriel tried to show a positive outlook then.

“Then it must be a fortunate occurrence that you need not to enter?”

“Well I’m glad  _ I  _ don’t but- not exactly happy  _ they  _ do.”

“Why is that?”

Andrew grabbed Toriel’s attention and just shook his head slyly. 

“Eh, you’ll see.”

He exhaled amusedly. 

The radio spoke again, shortly after. The voice was much clearer, and also belonged to a  _ female.  _ While there were women in this party, they were a rare occurrence. The conversation began:

**“Station Alpha. This is Sierra Juliette 04. We’ve arrived down below, over.”**

“Sierra Juliette 04, Station Alpha: You are permitted to make your way over here, just follow the provided markers and try not to get distracted by the weirdness, over.” 

“Wait!”

Piped up Toriel. Normally she followed the request by the corporal to keep quiet until either he or the person on the other side of the radio said “out” but something very pressing occurred to her. Facing some disdainful looks, she acted in the face of them.

“The monsters, there are monsters who live in the Ruins. Tell them about not harming anyone.”

Before anybody could respond, the radio spoke.

“ **Copy, Wilco Station Alpha. We’ll be with you soon. Out.”**

Toriel shook her head quite rapidly.

“No no no, you need to tell them not to fight anyone! Please tell them you are not done!”

Andrew could’ve gotten annoyed at her for potentially impeding his job, but he just shook his open hand and kept a cool voice while lowering the microphone once more. 

“Don’t worry about it, it’s  _ fine.  _ Higher ups said they already got everyone here taken care of, ok? Given them the memo, probably that we’re the good guys.”

His words while assuring were not enough to soothe the monster. She sincerely squinted.

“Are you sure?” 

He gazed into her, Toriel felt no hostility even as the eyes took her in.

“I wouldn’t be tellin it If I  _ wasn’t.  _ We’re National Guard. We help people, much as it’ll shake everyone else: you’re people too. We all got our missions to do, people to keep safe and  _ Toriel?  _ You’re just  _ our  _ mission.”

“Damn straight, Andrew.” 

Steven added to the hinted promise, even wrapping his one arm around Mollomor and patting him on the shoulder (He just suppressed a smile and grunted while playfully pushing Steven away.)

  
  


She couldn’t help but smile because of them, they made her feel like everything was going to work out in the end. All of the bad that had happened recently was about to be countered by the good.

“We just wanna help. That’s all.”   
  


...

“What did you say?...” 

All the good feeling had been  _ sucked  _ out of her, replaced by the cold feeling that enveloped her in the instant the room gave way without warning. They did a fade on her, she was somewhere else before she knew it: where she always ways but never would be. Toriel shouldn’t have come here... She was so taken aback by the change that she couldn’t hear him. So she asked again, slowed by apprehension.

“ _ What did you  _ **_say??”_ **

“We just wanted to  _ help…”  _

A glimmer of red light forced itself to become Steven but it was already too late. He was dead, Toriel could tell by the empty stare of his dilated eyes: they looked directly at her but saw absolutely nothing. Though his head had blossomed open in the back and his mouth had caved in from the bullets that struck him, Steven spoke his final words so clearly: almost as if they were the very thoughts in Toriel’s mind. She would hear the same thing over and over as Steven’s friends came forth too. 

Andrew had been terribly burned on one side of him, the rest was riddled with little bleeding holes.

Mollomor had the same kind of burns but to a lesser extent… he wasn’t saved though: the holes in his head had killed him already.

They chanted their message in perfect unison, moaning its meaning through the entire world. Toriel tried to hide, to conceal herself from the grim sights but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. More apparitions were coming, she could see the horde of red shambling out from obscurity. Twisted and mutilated forms with their sunken and battered faces, there was  _ nothing  _ she could do for them, why did they come? 

_ You couldn’t stop them, the sirens were already on their way. Listen for their screams crescendoing in the distance.  _

_ You couldn’t keep them. _

_ You couldn’t help them. _

_ You couldn’t save just ONE. _

_ You condemned them all. _

_ But at least you saw the SUN.  _

She closed her eyes and shuddered as they all came to reach her.

“No.  _ No!  _ Please… I am sorry…” 

“Hey… Toriel.  _ Toriel.  _ **_Hey!”_ **

Suddenly, she was forced to open her eyes again to the sound of rapid  **_-snapping!-_ ** just inches from her face. Somehow, she had found her way back to her occupied home: with a trio of soldiers looking at her with varying levels of concern. Andrew removed his hand from her face and Steven cocked his head.

“Hey. What’s the matter? Are you alright?” 

However, some of Toriel was still putting herself back together, she just blinked some moisture from her eyes and tried to say something without really thinking of what to say.

“Whauh?”

“What’s goin on with you? Are you OK???”

“What. Happened?”

She finally asked.

“You tell  _ us.” _

Deadpanned Andrew.

“You’re sitting there muttering and crying to yourself, couldn’t hear anything we were saying until I got up close to ya.” 

She wanted to look him in the eyes, but Toriel just couldn’t bring herself to do it: all she would be able to see would be his partially cremated face. The visions were stuck to her memories. Despite it though, she took a moment to comprehend everything and then shook her head decisively. 

“Oh, n-no. Do not worry for me. I apologize for worrying you. I must have fallen  _ asleep  _ again and fallen into a bad drea-d-dreem.”

She expected some skeptical looks, while the dishonest sting of  _ another lie  _ coursed through her. What a terrible person she was. A terrible, no-good, lying, coward of a boss monster… Only a couple more negative attributes were needed and she’d be  _ juuust  _ like someone else she used to know. Toriel had to suppress another terrible shudder that wanted to  **_scrape_ ** and  **_slide_ ** up her back.

“Really? You went out  _ that  _ fast? You were just talkin to us! Dayum.”

Toriel had to cook up another disgusting lie, taking even less time than the first one. 

“Forgive me. I have not been able to treat myself to much sleep lately, so much.  _ “Excitement”  _ going on so soon.” 

Whether they believed that pitiful fib or not didn’t matter because the sounds of footsteps and rattling gear coming from the front entrance took precedence. 

“Here we go.”   
Andrew stood up and made his way to the doorway to greet them, lighthearted sarcasm to come.

“Heyy, you made it! How are we enjoying our fever dream so far?”

Somebody new answered him, a younger sounding man.

“Oh  _ finally!  _ Something  _ sane!” _   
Somebody  _ else  _ made an undirected comment.

“Are we inside of a video game or something?”

“This looks like  _ DOOM! _ ”

“Which one?”

“You  _ know  _ which one I’m talkin about.”

Andrew chuckled to himself and motioned for the team to enter.

“Here, get inside. And uh-”

Then sounded a tad exasperated for having to repeat something for another time.

“- _ don’t shoot  _ or freak out by the  _ way.” _

A team of four people entered, all dressed up and carrying their big guns while their big bags hung over their shoulders. One of the soldiers was a woman sporting a brown ponytail and carrying a different looking gun than the others… it was longer and that mattered for some reason.

  1. Of course, they had their moment of _‘shock’_ and _‘surprise’_ seeing Toriel but were not as disrespectful as some of the previous teams. 



“ _ Whoa. That’s  _ a monster? These things are freaking living down here? Damn!”

That was about the rudest it got, it was almost satisfying to see the guy getting slapped in the back of his helmet and told off by the woman.

“ _ No,  _ you dummy! They look all  _ different _ , they said.”

“Are we actually letting it walk around?”

“This is her  _ house  _ you know…”

Steven looked unamused at his comrades. 

“Her house?”

Then he pointed to Toriel.

“Uh-yeah, ‘her house’. This is Toriel, who’s like a  _ person  _ like you and I? She’s really nice, mm. This is her house you’re tracking mud into.”

They were all kind of fascinated that she had a name to which Toriel sheepishly waved and said “hello”. Of course doing that garnered more astonishment… she really didn’t mind all the staring at this point. Any comments these new arrivals made were more about how ‘freaky’ this all was rather than anything rude for Toriel’s appearance… Although nothing would be as rude as the gentleman who referred to her as a “walking cow”.

Andrew rolled his eyes and cleared his throat so he could sound more bored.

“Now that introductions are outta the way, welcome to Station Alpha. This is our first outpost, we got more down the line and uh-  _ you guys  _ just gotta go down these stairs here and through the tunnel till ya reach a place that’s got snow in it.”

“Are you  _ kidding  _ me?”

He shook his head.

“Nope, sorry. I’m not, locals call it ‘Snowdin’ we call it ‘Zone 2’.”

Someone in the group asked the question everyone had, in the tone everyone wanted to ask it in.

“And just.  _ What’re  _ we supposed to be doing here???” 

Andrew shrugged.

“Dunno, they want you to keep following the markers-  _ there’s more markers ahead-  _ till you reach the other team there… Who’s out there again?”

He whipped his head to Steven who had gotten up from his chair once more and pretended to look busy.

“Foxtrot Lima, they’re out watching the dock, they said.” 

Back to the group.

“Foxtrot Lima, you’ll get your orders there, I guess. Captain’ll tell you himself.”

The woman cricked her neck and looked around.

“Is it just me or is that really  _ bizarre?” _

“Everything’s bizarre down here.”

Andrew said joylessly. 

The woman had a defeated sigh and looked away for a moment. She came back to Andrew when she thought of something else.

“Did they at least  _ find him  _ yet?”

“ _ Nnn _ no…” 

“Well I guess that still gives us something to look  _ forward to.”  _

She didn’t sound too happy, nobody here really  _ was _ . Toriel went to offer them pie but she figured her words would go in and out of their ears untouched, so she muttered to Steven who was closest to her.

“Do you think they would like to sit down too?”

He took his eyes off the woman just to acknowledge Toriel.

“Hm? Oh I don’t think they can, command wants them out there: we shouldn’t keep em waiting.”   
  


It was worth a shot, Toriel slumped back into her chair. 

“Is there anything you guys need before proceeding? As you can see, we’re basically a ‘camp store’ here with all the supplies you need for all the nothing you’re going to be doing down here.” 

The woman made an amused sound and grinned a little bit, she began to casually stroll further inside the home. 

“I think we’re set, Corporal.”

A mostly silent whine came from the group.

“These guys are sitting here, got freakin pie, I want summa that! The hell did they get  _ pie?” _

Toriel was not able to accommodate them sadly, but she did try to make a note of the face of the soldier who complained. She’d make an effort to give him what he craved later. 

While her squadmates hesitantly took to the stairs, the woman detoured to the table and thoroughly rubbed her knuckles into Steven’s short hair. He turned and shot her a particularly sour expression.

The woman remarked playfully.

“Looks like you get to sit on your ass all day again, huh?”

Steven cracked up and lightly struck her in her armor.

“At least you get to have  _ fun…  _ As much fun as counting how many fingers you can still feel out there.” 

She smiled at him fully and took the bite of pie right off of his fork before turning around hustling for the stairs. Steven sighed with humor, calling out to her before she descended.

“Be safe, Suze.” 

She turned to see him one more time…  _ and it was easier because her neck had been twisted almost all the way around, she waved to him and then they were gone… but it wasn’t the last of them. Their footsteps had long ceased creating the echoes but Toriel could still SEE them. Her eyes had traveled to a place she hadn’t been in over  _ **_twenty years:_ ** _ the other side of the door. They sat, they waited, hiding within a bush. _

_ Tireless, content: it was like they had ALWAYS been there, seeing decades of humans on their one way trips,  _ **_their death marches._ **

**_Then came the soldiers._ **

_ The door was wide open and they were marching out of it…. _

_ Clad in camouflage: carrying all manners of assault weapons, the army was coming out of that door… She could see the flags passing by with each soldier. _

_ For some reason she couldn’t ascertain, the sight SCARED her, it made her feel DISGUSTING. Seeing them emerge from the RUINS was the most horrible thing she had ever witnessed…  _

**_She felt so BAD for herself._ **

**_So sorry._ **

**_So so very sorry._ **

**_She wanted to cry, to scream, nobody was going to hear, and there was nothing she could DO._ **

**_…_ **

**_It was funny actually._ **

**_Like the funniest joke she had heard in her life, but funnier._ **

**_Toriel felt like laughing… maybe she was, she could see herself doing it: rolling around on the dirty floor just SCREAMING with laughter._ **

No, NO. That wasn’t true, this was wrong. She shook her head strenuously and forced herself to return to her table. Her eyes were back to seeing the three soldiers carrying on a conversation she couldn’t hear yet, she was too occupied hearing her own raucous laughter exploding in her head. They didn’t notice her struggling,  _ good.  _ Only one person needed to worry what the hell was wrong with her.

This spontaneous assault of bad feelings, it was not  _ normal.  _ These negative emotions, they couldn’t have been  _ hers.  _ The visions were carrying them to her, from a place she couldn’t remember. It felt like she was existing in two different places at the same time, two different  _ worlds  _ even. These ‘episodes’ were brief visits to the second one, each incursion grew longer and more  _ vivid.  _ It wouldn’t be long before it became difficult to tell the two apart, what would she do then?

**Leave.**

* * *

When Toriel escaped back to the real world again, she took with her: lots of disorientation and confusion. Somehow she had the intuition to ask a question: something to make her forget about the laughing, just until it forgot about her. 

“What is special about that woman to you? Steven?”

Like she would  _ ever  _ ask anybody something as insensitive as  _ that,  _ but here she was.

He stopped grinning at his friends and turned his attention to her-

“Huh wha?”

-despite the question not registering to him quite yet. It came eventually though, leading him to lean over towards Toriel and lower his voice, the answer not being intended to be audible to the others. He downright whispered to her and even held a hand to further muffle his voice.

“Oh! She’s my sister in law.”

Unfortunately for him, all that effort went to waste, Andrew piped up.

“You mean your  _ older  _ sister in law, the one that makes you look like the wee  _ baby  _ brother?” 

Steven flattened his expression and sighed for real.

“Yea, sure: that one… and if we’re being fair, I can’t say I’m too comfortable with her freezing out there.”   
  


Toriel squinted a little, finding something else to think about even if it bothered her too.

“Snowdin is not a hostile land though: it should be cold but not  _ too  _ cold.”

Andrew took it as a kind of joke, he seldom showed any happiness that  _ wasn’t  _ just applied sarcasm.

“Yeah I guess you’re right, our built in  _ fur coats  _ **_do_ ** make it a breeze to sit in sub-zero temperatures.” 

The monster frowned more.

“I am sincere, Snowdin is maintained to stray away from extreme cold. It is not too cold for humans!...-”

Her confidence took a dive when putting twenty years away from everything into perspective.

“-is it not?”

Steven walked over to one of the green trunks that had been opened, he partially removed a heavy green coat to show Toriel.

“Don’t you remember how the other team out there had to come back for these? It’s  **cold** in there, like  **_really cold…_ ** Say, was Sierra Juliette equipped with these??”

“Oo- that reminds me, shut up everyone.”

Andrew scurried back to his radio and quickly played with it before picking up the microphone. 

“Papa Whiskey, Station Alpha. Papa  _ Whiskey,  _ Station Alpha. Over.”

“ **This is Papa Whiskey 02, go ahead Alpha. Over.”** **  
** “Papa Whiskey 02, I’m informing you that Sierra Juliette has just left Zone 1: Making their way for-.”

His words were obscured, pushed aside by more obsessive thoughts. The idea of someone actually returning to the RUINS after leaving was… well it had never happened before, not with Toriel’s policies. But was she really wrong about the state of Snowdin? What would she know, not experiencing its chills for years? Had it changed? Had  _ he  _ changed it… Would Asgore  _ do  _ something as  cold  cruel as that? That wasn’t a fun thought to have, but it was far better than wondering if that shoddy old sweater she gave to BRAINZ was enough-  **_but why think about him? There was no reason he should bother her anymore, why care about his safety? Why care about ANYONE?_ **

‘Ohh,  _ please.  _ Enough. I do not want to think like this anymore…’ 

…

Fine.

_ Speaking of ASGORE… _

  
  


**“All Stations, This is Delta Yankee. Informing everybody that we’re in the throne room and have ‘Pandora’s Box’ in custody. According to him, Suspect Omega has NOT arrived here yet. I say again: We have arrived in the throne room in Zone** **_15,_ ** **Pandora’s Box is in custody and has NOT encountered Suspect Omega.”**

A small pause before it spoke again.

**“All Stations, we are setting up another outpost here as well, codename ‘Station B’, receiving on channel 6.”**

Andrew did not have to answer it and nn the silence that followed the blaring message, Toriel would be the first one to talk. She knew what one of the codes stood for, and had already made a good guess on the other.

“ ‘Pandora’s Box’. Is that how you refer to Asgore?”

They all looked at her nervously, then to each other for answers when they only had questions.

“We’re really not supposed to-.”   
Muttered Andrew. Steven though, answered him right away with a stern gaze.

“I think she deserves to know.”

And then he turned to Toriel just to give a laden nod.  
“Yeah, he’s fine though: you can relax. ‘Custody’ just means that he won’t be able to do anything rash now. That we’ve uhm. Got him _sat down_ basically, gonna be talkin to him.”

“I know what ‘custody’ means.”   
Droned Toriel, while she rubbed her head and balanced it onto her arm. 

“We’re not going to  _ hurt him  _ or anything.”   
Steven felt the need to bring that up as if it was a concern to her. Unbeknownst to Toriel, Mollomor started slowly shaking his head at Steven, with a disapproving scowl on his face. 

Andrew though, got up from his chair and stretched out his partially sleeping legs with a grunt.

“ _ MMmmmnn-  _ How bout the fact that Brainz is still  _ lurking  _ down here?”

The subject did not go anywhere though, because Steven felt another need to ask  _ Toriel  _ something for once. Much less a direct interrogation and more just a blind curiosity. 

“If I can ask, since you used to be  _ with him,  _ right? What made ah- Asgore just up and decide he wanted to-”

He had a dry swallow.

“- up’n kill people? You said that you all were doin just fine down here until so.  **_Ow.”_ **

Andrew decided to reprimand Steven by slapping him in the back of his unprotected head, he really didn’t have to do it though: Toriel wasn’t offended by the question. In fact, she could see in all their eyes that they were wondering that very question… Steven was just the only one brave enough to ask. 

“It-it it.is-”

She cringed at herself frustratedly and tried again with some resentment pushing her forward.

“It’s  _ fine.  _ It does not  **_bother_ ** me. Anymore.” 

That’s what she kept telling herself at least, deciding what she would tell them  _ was  _ going to bother her. What kind of lie would Toriel get to cook up now? There was no chance that she was going to make herself go back to… the place she had to go to tell the story, she was never going back there. But regardless of what she did, everyone was going to visit this place soon enough. With Asgore being handled, assumptively under the gaze of guns, the soldiers would get it out of him. What would  _ he  _ say? About  _ her  _ of all things? 

Maybe Toriel should’ve thought about this earlier, get all of the dreading and soul crushing anxiety out of the way. How could trying to hide from it for all of eternity have failed though? 

Lucky for her, the very long time she took to say anything, let alone show any kind of reaction gave Andrew another opportunity to get everyone’s mind on something else.

“How bout we think about how  _ Omega  _ is still around? Anybody happen to catch that? Just me?” 

Steven himself grunted and adjusted his armor impatiently.

“Ok fine, but do you  _ really  _ think he’s going to be  _ our  _ problem ever?”

Andrew shrugged indifferently at him.

“How can we know? This guy could be  _ anywhere.” _

The man scoffed and cracked a sly little smile.

“He could be  _ dead,  _ wouldn’t that be funny? We spend all this time paranoid and it’s a wild goose chase for someone who fell down an endless pit-”

**_26_ **

**_Fell for twenty seconds, the ribs picturing the heart were what caused the death. Not everything else shattering from the impact._ **

A terrible  _ mangled  _ image came to mind.

“- or into some  _ lava-” _

**_102_ **

**_Skin and flesh boiled before even touching it, death followed three seconds after submerging. Lack of buoyancy was merciful._ **

Snapshots from a nightmare, they wouldn’t  _ stop.  _ He wouldn’t  _ go away!  _

“-Or hell,  _ maybe  _ he got wind of us covering both exits and decided to just  _ quit.” _

**166**

**_Gunshot, self inflicted from a 45 ACP Revolver, Toriel was traumatized._ **

“NO! Stop!”

They were all staring at her, Toriel was trembling.

“Please-.”   
She lowered her voice and muffled it further when she hid her face into her claws.

“- no more. Please stop talking about him, I can’t take it anymore.”

The tears started up again, and she wouldn’t be able to make them stop. 

“Alright yeah, that’s  _ enough,  _ Steven. The hell’s the matter with you?”

She heard some unsuspected stuttering.

“I-i-i- I didn’t  _ mean  _ to. Look, I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you-.”

Andrew stopped him.

“Maybe we should just give her some space.”   
  


“...Alright…”

His voice got closer.

“I  _ am  _ sorry though. Toriel.” 

She forgave him already, but it didn’t get the images to leave her head.

* * *

The next cluster of hours went by rather tamely, there was little for conversation between anybody really, mind for the ones had over the radio. Some more groups of soldiers dropped down, dropped by, always with something to say about her. Toriel wasn’t in much of a mood to acknowledge anyone too much: it took most of these passing hours to rid her mind of the obsessive thoughts. Only when she stopped wondering how the deaths of her past ‘children’ went, could she ‘blossom’ back up a bit. 

“Are you alright?”

Steven would humbly look up to her, seeing her doing the same to him. Toriel would give him a weak little nod and he would apologize yet again… any interaction he had with her seemed to have a new degree of apprehension to it. 

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t do this to me…” 

It felt a little caustic coming out of her mouth, but it was  _ true.  _ Why lie about it? She had already done far too much of it. 

Nothing really interesting came to be, Toriel stopped really paying attention to what the radio would periodically spout: until a word she recognized came through. 

**“This is Papa Whiskey 03, to all stations in Zones 11 through 13: We got a positive sighting for Omega here. I say again, Suspect Omega is** **_in_ ** **the CORE, Zone 11 through 13 be advised. Any Stations, Copy! Over.”**

Andrew did not respond back to it, he would admit shortly that the message was not intended for ‘Station Alpha’. He did however clap his hands together and exhale sharply.

“Welp, this is it: we got em.”   
  


The CORE though? Brainz making it that far was one thing, and the idea that he was going to be killed sent Toriel into a dark headspace but there was no way the military knew about how easy it was to get lost in the CORE. Andrew could’ve been right, but only if they were watching both of the exits from the outside, anything else was uncertain. 

Toriel and the three men waited and waited for an update on the channel they weren’t supposed to be on. But nothing would come to be, not pertaining to  _ Brainz  _ at least. Something much less related would be in store just for Station Alpha though.

**“This is Corporal Massula coming in from the Throne room, calling for a status on the lock squad, do you copy? Over.”**

Andrew made a displeased noise and pointed all derisively to the receiver as if the man on the other side were inside of it. 

“ _ This guy,  _ pfft.” 

Microphone to his mouth, cynical grin starting at the corner of his mouth.

“Loud and clear, Corporal, proceed with your message. Over.”

Steven squinted at him.

“Why’re you speaking like that over the comms, you’re gonna get us in trouble.”

Andrew made a rude sound with his mouth and shook his head.

“I don’t think he  _ speaks-.” _ _   
  
_

**“Gimme a status on codename Lock. Over.”**

Everybody in the room (except Toriel) were taken slightly aback from the message. It wasn’t too hard to figure what ‘Codename Lock’ meant, especially with the three soldiers slowly and awkwardly turning their heads at Toriel. 

Real  _ cute.  _ Asgore was Pandora’s box and Toriel was the ‘Lock’ on that box, what a good way to try and  _ guilt trip  _ her for leaving. With the lock being so far gone and the hellish contents allowed to pour out from the box with every asinine and deranged action Asgore had done. 

Andrew spun back to the radio, still off guard.

“Uhh- oh, she’s fine? I’ll uh-”

Then he looked right at her and held the microphone an equal distance between them, it was still broadcasting.

“-heya, you doin alright there? Someone’s askin bout’cha.”

Asking just  _ why  _ they gave Toriel that peculiar title over the radio probably was more trouble than it was worth. She could always open that can of worms later when less than ‘everybody’ was listening. But she had to say  _ something  _ though. In the end, Toriel tried the best she could to remember how she felt before all this… when she wasn’t morbidly depressed.

“Oh!, Well I’m just fine: thank you for asking! Tell your friends I said  _ hello!” _

Somehow she even managed to make herself sound  _ completely  _ oblivious to all the hidden mistrust and laden skepticism. Good ole ‘stupid’ Toriel, the unsuspecting monster for all the humans to gawk at. 

Andrew chuckled and brought the piece back to his mouth.

“Hehehe, yeah. Toriel says “hello”.. Over.”

**“Copy that, that’ll be all: Primary Sentinel Squad, Out”**

“Hoooo boy-.”

Said Andrew, leaning back in his chair as he replaced the microphone.

“- someone’s gonna have to get Massula into the remedial for radio etiquette, good  _ god.” _

Steven remarked on something in a humorous way, folding his arms and leaning close.

“What did he say,  _ ‘Primary Sentinel Squad?’  _ what does  _ that  _ mean?”

They both laughed, even Mollomor who was sitting in the corner of the room reading a book, exhaled with amusement from his nose. None of them addressed Toriel again, they all just kept to themselves and their inside merriment while she was left by herself. Maybe they hoped she would just forget about what she heard if they didn’t mention it. Maybe they thought she was  _ stupid,  _ or just didn’t know about “Pandora’s Box”. It could’ve been something even “better”, if it required them to  _ check-in  _ with her, make sure she was still  _ behaving.  _ It felt quite a bit less ‘friendly’ in her home now…

The groups had stopped coming through, Toriel wondered why and ran through all the grim scenarios she couldn’t hold back in her head, when a different kind of message came through for Andrew. The caller’s voice was rushed, he couldn’t get the words out fast enough, it sounded.

**_“Station Alpha, This is Papa Whiskey 02, Over.”_ **

“Papa Whiskey 02, Station Alpha. Go ahead.”

**“Copy, Captain wants to know: do we have** **_any_ ** **teams left topside? Over.”**

Toriel could see in Andrew’s face that he suspected something was wrong.

“Papa Whiskey 02, Affirmative: Alpha November is our last one. Should I get ground team to send them down? Over.”

**“** **_Yes- Station Alpha, Affirmative, get them to Zone 11 right away. Tell them to double time it. Over.”_ **

He made a face showing how the lack of context was working out for him, but nevertheless,

“Wilco, they’ll be on their way: is something going on up there, Papa Whiskey 02? Over.”

**“I dunno, Captain just said to make it urgent, they want us to head over there ourselves, we gotta move. Out.”**

Microphone replaced, operator leaning back and exchanging some confused looks with his friends. Andrew squinted one eye closed.

“Oookay? That’s uh-.”

“ _ That’s  _ kind of concerning.”

Steven finished for him, standing in the middle of the room looking kind of drained at this point. They had all been at this post for the greater part of an entire day with no breaks or naps, there was no hiding the bags and discoloration forming under their eyes.

“Think it has anything to do with  _ Brainz?” _

“Well  _ no shit  _ it does! Have we  _ heard _ anything about him? We probably lost him and now we’re doubling up the forces on the exits, I’m sure that’s not what they’re gonna  _ tell  _ us if I ask, but it seems up their alley.” 

The final team came by (A group of five soldiers) considerably faster than all the others. Andrew and Steven gave them the briefing with the most seriousness compared to what they did for all the other groups. They even went so far as to tell them to blatantly ignore Toriel and withhold any comments or questions about her. Quicker than all the others, the team was sent out and they thundered down the steps and into the cold outside. 

“That’s it.”

The corporal stood at the base of the stairs, unmoved from his place as he watched the squad enter the tunnel. 

“That’s all of us down here- mind for the twenty of us or so stationed up top.”

Steven was leaning over the railing.

“Twenty people? We’re a hundred and seventeen in the company so that’d put  **ninety-seven** people down here.”

“ **Ninety-eight,** you forgot about the-uhh. Police lieutenant.  **Ninety-** **_nine_ ** if we’re counting Brainz if he’s still alive.” 

The private stepped back from the stairs.

“ _ Jeeesus.  _ The hell are we  _ doing  _ down here that we need everyone? Is that  _ really  _ all for Brainz?”

“Don’t know.”   
Andrew turned his back to the stairs as well.

“It’s probably got something to do with how many mon- what the  _ hell?” _

For a brief moment, all the lights in the room  _ dimmed _ : the change in brightness wasn’t as noticeable as the strange  **_-whirring!-_ ** noise that came from behind the walls. It had ceased after a couple of moments.

“What was  _ that _ ? A  **_brown-out?_ ** How does that even work down here?” 

The second question was rhetorical from Steven and nobody looked to Toriel for an answer. 

“There’s…  _ something  _ goin on here, they ain’t tellin us. Something’s not right.”   
Andrew remained calm, almost  _ too  _ calm with his grim mutter. He was about to make for the trusty radio… when a  _ new  _ noise filled the room.

It wasn’t an immediate noise, instead: muffled and only brought to the home by the echoes carrying it from within the basement. It sounded like somebody was banging on the door… Then the soldiers heard a voice they had never heard before…  **But Toriel could recognize it** **_easily._ **

“ _ TORIEL  _ It’s  _ me!  _ Open the door!”

"NNoo. Fucking. _Way...."_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  



	26. 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hush little baby, 
> 
> don't say a word
> 
> MAMAS GOT A GRENADE 
> 
> AND WILL BE HEARD

**Stop.**

It happened again, everything had abruptly come to pause. All movement ceased, the soldiers had been frozen as they were with their gestures and intentions never concluding. The world Toriel experienced had been reduced to a still image before her eyes but it didn’t surprise her as a new anomaly should. She felt like this had happened before, she could almost swear it came to happen over one  _ hundred _ times. 

Had the indefinite well of time come to a pause; all signs of life becoming impossible to tell as living beings turned to motionless,  _ silent  _ statues?  **No.** Toriel couldn’t see the soldiers moving, but she could hear them  _ breathing.  _ Their subtle signs of panic were all that wished to be heard in the onset of rapid breaths. They waited, for something further to happen: to confirm the existence they sensed. 

The vibrations were felt again, three powerful and well considered  **_-bangs!-_ ** traveled to the home and then all mystery was put down.

“It’s  _ ME.  _ Brainz! Open the  _ DOOR!!”  _

**Resume.**

[31BEGINENCOUNTER4F](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K26HoQsziE)

**  
  
**

The delayed onset of terror struck them like the rending blow from a baseball bat covered in teeth. All three of them stumbled forward, forgetting of their stored momentum… Toriel remained frozen in the chair, the extant picture of this frantic scene. 

_ He came back... _

Brainz came  **_back._ **

He came back for  **_her!_ **

The only time in her existence where her greatest fear  _ wasn’t  _ the death of her ‘child’, and the fear  _ still  _ came true. This was her  _ punishment,  _ this was her  _ trial.  _ This was tearing her from her rotten sanctuary and forcing her to face it. Toriel began to lose her grip on the world, she felt like she was floating away to somewhere else… Somewhere that  _ cried  _ and  _ yearned  _ for her, somewhere else that  _ shoved  _ her away, it  **_HATED_ ** her. They wanted to pull and rip her apart, tear her open to fill her with their horrible truths. She tried to call for help, to pull her back down: but the only people around were  _ preoccupied.  _

Private Eeneyae became a child, hopelessly trapped in a loop of juvenile panic: as he rocked the better half of himself back and forth while breathlessly repeating the same words.

“He’s here. Oh my god,  _ oh  _ my god, he’s actually here.  _ OH _ my god-.”

Private Mollomor lost his place in his book, he dropped it to the floor and sprung to his feet: doing nothing but looking to his commanding officer for guidance. 

Corporal Collicks started to suffer a similar outcome as Eeneyae: stuttering the same expletive over and over: but his rudimentary instincts  _ snapped  _ into control of him. His actions became nothing more than impulses bred from his training. He shook his head once, with all the force he could: jostling all his inhibitions loose and then made for the pyramid of the squad’s assault rifles leaning into each other. He grabbed weapons by their necks and cried out for their owners.

“ **_Jake! Steven!”_ **

He earned their focus, they earned their weapons: throwing the guns one by one to his comrades before getting a hold of his and charging it into action with a swift  **_-ka-chnk!-._ ** He dashed to his rented chair at the table and removed the helmet from the back of it, forcibly placing it onto his head and sprinting for the stairs. The privates did the same and were right behind him but Andrew dared to delay for  _ one  _ moment as the sounds of Brainz’s rising agitation carried from beyond the door. Andrew stopped Steven in his tracks with a decisive point of his finger and shouted to him.

“ _ No!  _ You stay here, Steven!”

He was met with an outraged, outcry.

“ **_What?! I’m coming to HELP you!”_ **

Andrew only sharpened his words and pulled all the command he could into his voice, he had to speak faster than ever: faster than the panic could go and overtake him.

“ **_NO!_ ** You stay here with  _ her!  _ That’s an  **_order_ ** **_!”_ **

There was no time for him to let this become an argument, Andrew whipped his head to the other private and frantically beckoned him to follow with his open arm.

“Let’s go,  _ Mollomor!”  _

He stampeded down the steps, Mollomor didn’t even touch down on half of them: he just vaulted over the railing, his boots hitting the landing with a thunderous  **_-THUD!-_ ** before they picked up running again. They were gone in  _ seconds,  _ off to confront the ‘monster of the surface’ while their friend struggled on his next action. 

Steven fearfully paced back and forth, his direction a victim of a conflict raging between his orders and his wants. In the end he would  _ scramble  _ for the radio on the table, throwing off his helmet in the process. Barely able to keep the microphone still in his shaking hands, Steven panickedly twisted and flicked some of the dials and buttons on the receiver before he spluttered his message on fast forward.

“Anystations _ Anystations!  _ This is Station Alpha. Omega is in  _ Zone 1!  _ He’s here! He’s at the door trying to get in! W-w-we got  _ two  _ of us going to engage with him. We need backup, NOW!” 

**But nobody answered…**

The terrified and blatantly frustrated noise he made preceded his next attempts to call anyone, with his subsequent messages becoming more hysterical and less comprehensible. Steven’s primitive cries for help would not be noticed by anyone… including the monster in the very same room as him. Toriel… couldn’t  _ see  _ him right now…

* * *

**  
  
**

**_Because he was DEAD…_ **

With the sound of THUNDER and the tinkling of bells, Steven hit the wall and crumpled into a pool of his own  _ blood.  _ He died without uttering a thing, the only sound after the ringing was the clatter of his body going limp and hitting the floor. He was the last one to die, what Toriel glimpsed in her sickened lucidity was how they were now: all slain by Brainz,  **slain for her.**

The last child, filthy with red and caked with dust, hobbled up the stairs calling out for Toriel. He showed  _ joy  _ when he saw her, his SOUL was ripe with hope. Never had a person like  _ this  _ one showed up, never did they come back. The ruse was still going for him, she  _ “couldn’t”  _ have known…

Toriel didn’t know what to do, she hadn’t even a shred for a course of action: the terror was full blown, a knife was slowly digging into her heart; wearing through her feeble resistant and waiting to plunge into her…  **_yet…_ ** as harrowed as she was: Toriel had this overwhelming sense of deja-vu, this all seemed so familiar. 

**“Why did you come back?”**

She hadn’t  _ spoken though,  _ but she  _ saw  _ her own lips moving and heard her own voice: cold as clay and far  _ far _ detached from herself. The moment Toriel saw the sobering in Brainz’s face, that twinge of fear sparking in his eyes: she wanted to stop immediately… but she  _ wouldn’t listen  _ to herself.

She watched herself glaring soullessly at the man as he spoke with such urgency and excitement, like a child retelling a fantastic story to their parents, desperate for their approval. Toriel gave him  _ nothing  _ of the sort, instead she called him a  **_murderer_ ** and other titles for such foul and reprehensible things. 

Brainz tried  _ so  _ hard to appeal to her, he made no effort to coerce her into  _ believing  _ him as he was too shocked that she  _ didn’t.  _ He had never uttered a single lie to Toriel, yet she had deceived him from the beginning and only admitted it now to sever herself from the burden he brought to her. 

**“** **_I **TRUSTED** YOU!!! You- BASTARD!!!!”_ **

The way he strained his voice, the pain he went through to express this emotion… it was heart-rending. Toriel tried to cover her ears, but her own self  _ refused  _ to do the same: content to tower over him and forget everything she knew to respect him.  **She called him** **_“ill” she said he was deranged, she accused him of things he couldn’t have done._ ** All her terrible things were products of the captain who condemned Brainz to die. All after she promised to  _ protect  _ him.

In the midst of the howling argument, Brainz’s screams tore through the flimsy facade of the room that tried to contain them. The walls lost their cover, showing the miles of writhing and  _ agony.  _ The floor splintered and broke apart into the sea of sharp and puncturing existence, every step was unendurable with the wounds from everything prior exponentially surging the harm caused. The halls became infinite… forever stretching to enable the misery to go on, spawning thousands upon thousands of portals studded into the misshapen folds. It wouldn’t stop and you  _ couldn’t  _ stop traversing it: you were forced to walk it: to progress against your own will and sanity by the very thing that willed this place to be. It turned everything red where it went.

Toriel saw her own self condemning Brainz, but she also witnessed the hellish landscape bathed in red: the  **_RED HELL_ ** constructing itself for her: every last door down to the places they took her, every  _ inch  _ of this place. Every bad feeling, every nightmare and traumatic experience found its way into her. The sheer size of it all could not be held within her own limited veil of awareness: massive cracks formed into the container of her mind, letting all the RED light shine in. All the black veils and thin walls clouding her memory were burned away by this searing light, allowing her to see everything that sat behind.

The very room she was in was not by itself, there were more of it: dozens, **_hundreds_ ** of this very same place, of  **_her_ ** . Hundreds of stages all with identical props and actors just in  _ different  _ places at  _ different  _ times, over and  **_over._ ** She was always the star of it, she was always  _ there _ . They were happening  _ now  _ but they had all happened  _ before.  _ It all made  _ sense:  _ that ‘crazy’ dream she had was not a dream…  **it was just ‘last night’s “show”’.** It was still so  _ FRESH  _ in her mind, it found its way back and it rooted itself in for  _ good.  _ Toriel knew everything about it: how it started, how it  _ twisted and turned,  _ how it  **_ended,_ ** and… how  **_this_ ** part went.

She couldn’t help but see it in full: not the Beretta he was about to point at her, but the despair in his face as he yelled in fury and heartbreak. When his only solace in the world became his enemy, just as it had happened before. And now she was going to strike him down as the flames grew in her grip. 

Toriel covered her eyes before it happened, but it did not spare her from the _yell_ she heard… or the acrid _smell_ that made her nose ache with the odor of burnt _flesh._ Her claws dropped onto her muzzle, desperate to distance herself from the reality of what she had done…

It had all ceased, she couldn’t hear his yells any more, and the odor was gone. But Toriel was then struck with an entirely new feeling, a  _ burning  _ sensation in her claws. She lowered her claws and saw  **red,** bright little droplets soaking into her palms. The was more of it too, she could feel the moisture dripping from her nostrils. The RED from Brainz, it was coming out of  _ her,  _ Toriel’s nose was  _ bleeding…  _

* * *

The sounds of tame distress nearby deviated her absent gaze away from her reddened claws.

“Ohh man-  _ ohh  _ man. Just gotta wait- I didn’t hear anything yet, oh man.”

It was  _ Steven,  _ standing at his place behind the railing: his rifle jittered in his nervous hands as he was shaking nonstop. Toriel was back in her cluttered home, somehow during the darkness: she had found her way to her reading chair and was sitting there staring at her reddened claws while Steven waited for Brainz to come and kill him.

She stared into her red claws, while she waited for Brainz to come and for her to betray him…

_ Toriel was frozen, gazing into her soiled palms while history was about to repeat itself…  _

Strange how she couldn’t feel anything about that, Toriel was completely devoid of emotion. She felt utterly numb mind for the burning sensation in her claws. The pain had made its way to the backs of her appendages, Toriel would make one slight movement of turning them over just to look. She could feel the fire  _ eating  _ away at her insides, the backs of her claws began to deform. The fur had started to  _ blacken  _ into some kind of bizarre pattern, a  _ familiar  _ pattern. When the burning finally ceased and the tremendous influx of emotions were on their way in their damn hurry, two very peculiar shapes were now permanently worn by the monster. Toriel would wear these marks for the rest of her life.

**Ω** **Δ**

She took one look at the symbols, they made her feel…sad… 

_ Y̶̨̥͖̲̬̞̯̱̼̦̥͙͊̓͂̅͊̑͐̈́̽͜o̵̺̝̼͖̮͖̖͓͔̫̳͇͂̎̄̂̋̆̍̇̇̀̍̄̈́͜͝ụ̵̧̫͎̝̞̳͔͎̜̺̟͙̈́̀̒̒͛͒͌͜͠͠ͅͅ ̸̡͈͙͇͈̦̝̾̓̽͌͛̃͛̃̽̒̃̕̚ͅf̴̝͉̣͕͎̩̩̹̳͎͎̜̩̭͊̐͜ͅe̶̢̢̡̛̮̠̙͉͙̤̗̖̦͐̂̂͑̽͂̐͋̑̽͐͂̚͠l̷̡̧͔̟̝͓͔͓͒͝ţ̶̪͔̹͕̱͓̠̥̈́̐͊͌̐͑̕͝͠ ̷̳̮̬͓̙̥̹͍̟̄̈́̔͋͂̎̆͘͝t̶̡̧̢̧͇͈͔̻̝̞̝̰̪͗̾͠h̶͕̖͎̄̅͛̾̇͗̉̋̋̀̒̕̕͠e̵̯̫̬̻̫̼̹̩̖͇͂̆́̀͑̊͋̑̓͜͠͝ ̵̟̗̑̈Ș̶̮̮͓̦̠̳͇̅͌̓͑̑͜͠Ȋ̶̱̫̽Ñ̴̳̊̚͝͠S̶͉͉̻̹̬̯͚̦̱͗͛̽̇̒͗͜͝ ̷̧̡̨̟̯̭̻̼̪̃̈́̿̎́̈́̈́͘c̷̰̯̬͙̤͚̗͓̗̘̜͇̱̔̎̋̍̔̄̊̈̕͝r̸̭̱͖̱͈͙̈́̅̐̕͝â̴̧͖̦͇̹͎̤̝̳̊͜w̸̢̳͓̞͕̱̘̫̞̞̆́̃͂̊̃̉͊̕͜ļ̵͖̖̭̞̺̩̄́̒̊̒i̶̛̦̖̟͋͑̊̾̍̅̓̽͝͝n̷̨̥͓̞͙̜̽g̸̛͉̺̠̰̼͙̮̦̠̓͛̈́͛̃̀͑̽̆͠͝͠ ̶̨̨͙̹̞̈́̽̔͐͗̈̾̔̎̂̚͜u̸̬͆͌͛͋̏̂̉͗̒̃̐͛͘̚͜p̷̳̓̅͛̃ ̴̨̭͔̘̰̬̜̖̤̳̩͖͍͗̂̈̽͒̕͘ͅy̸̨͙͙̩̥̦̕ȍ̸̢̢͖̼͚̺̼̗͖̣͙̝͕̋͛͂̑͆̃̽u̴̦͐̓̿̓͛̿͠r̴̛͎͔͑ ̶̛̞͖͇͚̟̤̼͐̇͗́́͋̏̄̈́͐ͅb̴̡̬̩͚̪͚̝̭͎̮͔̿͊̓͗̍̒̾̑͛̈́̃͘ͅą̴̣̭͉̤͔̬̣̽̔͒̊̓̈́͗̋̐̉̈͘͜͠ć̵͕͙̦̮͇̪͉̺̰͋́̇̓̋͂̕͘͘͝ͅk̶̢̨̛̯̪̱̝̻̳̮͙͈̯͖̆̓̾͊͌̅͌̀̄̉͑̇͆̌̂͜͜.̴̧̧̟̣̜̜̖͌͋́̑͂͂͊.̵̢̲̻͖̼͚̮̬͙̟̈́̑̈́̌̂͌̕͝.̴̤͇̈́̾̋̈́͝ͅ _

Then she leapt from her chair and bolted down the basement stairs, Toriel couldn’t even hear the bewildered shouts from Steven as she was going too fast. 

All these years of walking down this accursed tunnel just to turn back lonlier than before… they represented  _ nothing  _ in this moment, Toriel couldn’t be less affected by any inkling of hesitation as she focused on making herself run faster than her  _ fast- _ **_est_ ** and then even  **_FASTER._ **

She saw them: Andrew and Jake saw her too, they heard the mighty commotion she was making and only had the time to turn around and catch the puniest of glimpses at the white monster before she barreled through them. All they could do is yelp on their way down as Toriel parted them like bowling pins without even slowing down or giving them further consideration. The massive doors did  _ nothing  _ to deter her, she only twisted herself and bashed them open with her shoulder. (Something she had never done or heard of before but it just occurred to her)

And then she was outside. 

**  
  
**

* * *

**  
  
**

For the first time in twenty years, Toriel felt the cold hitting her fur and the damp snow caressing her feet. Back into the chilling embrace of Snowdin, exposed to the world she abandoned and open to all the consequences. It was terrifying beyond ration for her, she had no grasp on what could happen… but it did not matter now because he was here too.

There he was, a purple and black mass standing in contrast to the shades of white basking in the limelight. A perfect representation of the lone soldier who stood against everything.

Brainz was here and he was  _ alive.  _ He was  _ here, _ he was  _ really  _ here and he was  **_real,_ ** he was as real as Toriel was. She wasn’t bound by a dream or trapped in inflexible memories, this was  _ now  _ and he was  **_really here!_ ** She could affect him now and Toriel could…  **_help him_ ** now. No words existed that could describe what Toriel felt seeing him in real life again: nothing could even come close. 

He was standing just a throw away from the door. Brainz was covered up by a dingy cloak, but Toriel could easily make out his face and all the scratches and wounds on it. A pinless grenade was tightly clutched in Brainz’s outstretched arm, it was primed and  _ he  _ was primed to throw it and blow the door open. He never got the chance to do so though… In fact he was treated to a similar fate as the soldiers behind Toriel where Brainz had only a moment to see her coming. When Toriel got to him though, she stopped herself dead in her tracks and gave Brainz the most intense and prolonged hug he would ever endure… 

There was no preventing this: Toriel lifted Brainz up so that she could bring him even closer to her as he was enveloped by her big form with his head tucked under her muzzle. 

The feelings… every inch of sorrow and insufferable desire to comfort him were released from Toriel’s SOUL. She could feel once more, all the pain and suffering trapped beneath the rough exterior but now she knew where it all came from, it grabbed onto her for dear life. In an instant, his contact reduced Toriel to a mess of ugly crying and incessant wailing. She couldn’t even speak clearly for the start of the outburst, too many things needed to be said coming out at once. All that could be competently said would be cried out as the monster’s grip further tightened on the human, Toriel’s plentiful tears quickly soaked into Brainz’s graying mess of hair.

“ _ I-I’m  _ **_sorry!_ ** I am  **_so_ ** **sorry,** _ so sorry,  _ **_oh my god_ ** **I am SO sorry!-”**

While only god knew how many things were uncertain here, it was easy to confirm that Toriel had never been this sorry before. She went on like a busted record with her voice wavering into more frantic sobs and out to high octave whines. One terrible quivering breath laid the path for another piece of near incomprehensible babbling. This went on for a time that could not be perceived by her, Toriel was utterly incapable of thinking of anything else or stopping herself here. She just couldn’t bring herself back down to reality, not when the colossal burden was finally slipping from her shoulders. For a moment of brief but absolute lucidity it felt like Toriel would lift right off of her feet and float up: a bit closer to heaven. She knew better than to give into it though, Toriel wasn’t going anywhere… not until she could take Brainz with her. 

Now though… the holy euphoria had gone away and the numbness had been burned to nothingness: letting the cold and putrid waters of reality soak into the monster once more. Toriel would be seated again, to the same place Brainz was. She could feel more than his presence now: feel his increasing struggles and hear the stark agitation in his voice as he thrashed in her embrace.

“Tor- what the  **_fuck_ ** are you  _ doing?!  _ **GET OFFA ME** **GODDAMMIT!** ”

What really took her out of her own self was the way Brainz’s voice turned to a raspy squeal and put away most of the anger for panicked apprehension. 

“I got a  _ live grenade here-  _ **_you’re gonna make me droppit, oh my god! You’re gonna kill both’ve us fucking jesus CHRIST!”_ **

The situation was fast deteriorating: Brainz’s attempts to free himself were becoming painful. Toriel was positive he was going to start physically harming her if she didn’t release him but that alone was just too easy to deal with, oh no…. His shouts would soon be in company as the trio of soldiers hired to kill Brainz emerged from the gaping maw of the RUINS. Their guns were all drawn and they were all the same in terms of being  _ frantic.  _ Toriel had already set them off with her impulsive actions, Brainz had put them into a panic just by showing up: and the sight of his and her reunion before them put the guys into a  **_frenzy._ **

They yelled at Brainz. Brainz yelled louder because of them and his experience and conditioning put him into a feral state where he began trying to strike and kick Toriel to break himself free for his fight or flight mechanism. The escalation was progressing at an exponential rate where soon the people screaming at the top of their lungs wasn’t going to be the loudest thing occurring at this junction. She tried to ease everything but her attempts were easily overlooked, Toriel couldn’t even hear herself  _ think  _ because of all the screaming going on around her… They just wouldn’t  _ listen _ , it wouldn’t  **_stop_ ** and she just didn’t know what to  _ do _ , her thoughts were still  _ fried  _ from the memory trip and the horrible sounds and visuals were coming  _ back.  _ All the hateful intention, everything was starting to turn  **_RED,_ ** don’t panic. Toriel shouldn’t  **PANIC. PAIN, SCREAMING, STOP. THEY’RE ALL GOING TO DIE.** **_PANIC THROBBING FASTER FASTER PANIC PANIC PANIC PANIC._ **

**  
  
  
**

**_“QUUUUUIEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!”_ **

Somewhere buried inside of her, one massive overloaded fuse had burst and the sound it created could’ve done the same thing to the eardrums of all the humans’. A brilliant burst of blinding stress before everything shut down. Higher thoughts went dark, there was only the indiscriminate voice telling her just what to do. Her words and her actions… nothing else. 

On the way down from the receding terror, Toriel did a little more than shriek like that. While it made everyone go silent like she wanted, their attention was not given to her… More so on the hand grenade Toriel had snatched out of Brainz’s grip and held up for everyone to see. The soldiers would recoil, Jake Mollomor would even try to make a move and start his retreat, but Toriel would make another more shrill and brief noise that rooted everyone to their place. Brainz was now arrested at her side by her other arm, effectively taking him hostage as she was about to do with everyone else. 

[You better behave....](https://youtu.be/A4iDk7qTYgw)

“ _ This.  _ Will  **explode.** If  _ anything  _ were to make me lift up my claw  _ here-.” _

She stressed just which one was keeping the arm attached to the M67. 

“-whether it is my own  _ will  _ or anything occurring that would prevent me from keeping this arm from coming loose.”

The way Toriel shared this was very  _ casual.  _ She did not raise her voice because she did not  _ have  _ to. Toriel spoke  _ calmly  _ and methodically… with the occasional  ~~ twitch  ~~ **_spasm_ ** that ran through her: causing a fragmented glimpse of a terrified face and a trapped scream decomposing into a quick little  **_‘CHK!’_ ** sound. 

“I am aware that you all  _ know  _ this.  **But.** You are not aware that I can do.  _ More.  _ Than suppress this weapon… I can feel its desire to go off. And I can ensure that the moment I permit it to do so. That I can.  _ Ensure  _ it will.  **Explode.** Far before the arm touches the  _ snow.  _ Before. You could even impress upon yourself. The idea? To run away. To  _ dive  _ for cover. Or to  _ stop  _ me.”

Through something Toriel did, she didn’t even  _ know  _ what she did, the stolen weapon in her grip adopted a bright blue luminosity. It made that visual confirmation that she was influencing the grenade with her magic… but just in case that wasn’t enough to convince everybody…

“We would all  _ perish.  _ I will.  _ Kill.  _ All of us. Is that understood?”    
  


It looked like it  _ was  _ understood, and very well at that. There weren’t any movements or signs of confirmation but that fact told her enough. Even though a trio of M16’s were pointed at her, not a damned single one was going to ever go off. 

“Good.  _ Now…”  _

A real awful shake paused her for a moment, it made everyone flinch as well but Toriel recovered and continued her monotonous drone.

“I would like all of you. To please.  _ Lay your weapons down _ for me.”

The lack of response was not what she wanted this time, so she asked  _ again  _ with a little more sweetened assertiveness.

“You need not to  _ hurry  _ yourselves: Jake, Steven, Andrew? But please.  **Drop your weapons.”**

“You gotta be.  _ Fucking  _ kidding right now…” 

Andrew was the first to speak, his tone was also calm with his words coming out slowly and hushed as to not agitate the monster. He was also the first to lower his weapon, glancing at both of his friends to make them do the same. 

Then a voice coming out from being ‘unheard’ treated them all to a low cynical groan.

“Knew this was gonna happen…”

Jake frankly tossed his rifle to the ground, giving off a good clatter. When Steven’s weapon joined the other two on the dirty path, Andrew let his arms freely hang and started to chuckle in disbelief. 

“So you  _ are  _ with him. Wow,  _ we sure  _ are fucking idiots huh? What’re you gonna do, you gonna have him  _ kill us  _ now? Is that what you want?” 

“Oh  _ no-” _

She answered him so assuredly before turning her head to the still fidgeting human in her clutches.

“- you too, Brainz. Put down that revolver you have in your pocket.  _ Please.”  _

Despite being asked  _ nicely,  _ Brainz’s squinted eyes widened as much as they’d go and the initial shock keeping him quiet wore off, letting the new ‘outraged’ kind of surprise dictate his words as he whipped and snapped to them.

“ _ Wwwhat?  _ The fuck do you know about-  **_why?_ ** I-I don’t get, who’re you helping here,  _ the fuck’n military or  _ **_me?!”_ **

Then the intentionally disdainful disgust shaped his next words.

“Or-or-or are you  _ actually  _ helping  _ Asgore  _ here because  **_I-”_ **

“ _ Shut up,  _ **_Byran!”_ **

Oops, that slipped out. It did make him quiet though, Brainz would find that he could now occupy himself with the most ‘off guard’ face he could make. Another stunned silence with more potent effect. Still though, that was very  _ NICE  _ and Toriel excused herself.

“I mean, I am attempting to  **_de-escalate_ ** this precarious situation and. I am afraid you were not helping me do so.”

She would feel all kinds of terrible for Brainz, but yelling at him really wasn’t the worst thing she could do to him. Anything she did to him,  _ FOR  _ him… she was trying to help him, Toriel was trying really freaking hard. 

Now while she didn’t feel good about what she did, Toriel achieved full and feeble cooperation from Brainz. He made only one comment, not so much a retort or a protest but more of a harsh whisper while his brows were not allowed to lower yet.

“(Who the fuck told you to call me that??)” 

Call that little hiss from him, the sound the can of worms made when being cracked open. All the lovely consequences were lacing up their running shoes but for  _ now:  _ Green returned to Brainz’s eye and he meekly produced the weapon that ‘fired’ into Toriel, just to let it slip from his grip and join the rest of the surrendered weapons. 

One of the first sane emotions Toriel would feel, would be how proud and relieved she was that Brainz complied. The gnawing terror for his well being was ever present somewhere beneath this, but it could relax a bit because he made that single step away from a deadly outcome. She was  _ happy  _ for him, so she gave him a smile.

“Thank you, sweetie.”

The face he made suggested she shouldn’t have said that either… Brainz was going to wear that shock for good while now, he would be mostly submissive for this next part: at least he wasn’t actively struggling anymore. 

“What the fuck is going on here?”

Hearing that frightened comment from Steven brought Toriel to her next move as she lifted her head back up to the still trio.

“Very well.  _ Now.  _ I would like all of us to turn back and go back upstairs. We are going to all sit down and  _ talk.  _ We are not going to shout or swear at each other, we are going to  **_talk.”_ **

It took some prodding but eventually Toriel got the soldiers to start backing up the tunnel, the grenade in her outstretched arm was like an indecisive magnet keeping them glued to her while repelling them away. She finally allowed Brainz to detach from her but maintained a hold on his hand, stringing him along from behind. The discarded weapons were nudged by Toriel’s feet back into the RUINS before she shut (and locked) the doors behind them… Toriel also insisted she carry Brainz’s bag for him. 

There were some comments (few were really  _ ‘nice’)  _ and a couple of questions (Which were all about Toriel’s sanity) on the way back but it went without incident. Slowly everyone would creep up the stairs and be directed back to their places at the dining room table. Brainz was going to stand in the middle of the room with Toriel holding his shoulders from behind. She could feel the sheer discomfort she was inflicting on the poor guy… but couldn’t do anything about it yet except feel his hastened breaths.

Brainz’s inventory slumped to the ground and Toriel started with a request for Andrew. This needed to be a  _ calm  _ environment and all the harsh voices and sounds coming from that big ole radio were working against that. 

“Mr Collicks, could I ask that you put your radio to sleep? I feel it is going to be a distraction.”

He started to shake his head but his eyes were stuck on that grenade.

“Uuhh- I-i if someone tries to contact us and we don’t pick up, they’re gonna know something’s  _ wrong.”  _

“ **They will** **_also_ ** **know that if you press that button on the receiver you are trying to reach for.”**

That subtle wince from him as his arm slipped from the table let Toriel know she was right to be paranoid. 

“Turn it off, please.”

She twitched a little smile for him and then the room became silent. Andrew confirmed his achievement by lifting his arms up and scooting himself away from the darkened radio. Toriel gave him the same kind of ‘proud smile’.

“Thank yooou.” 

Now that the room was hers and all the little children were in their places ready to listen, Toriel could begin her one and only chance to do the impossible. Already had history been changed and there was no telling any outcome to this. She just knew what she had to do and about two thousand ways it could go wrong. But  _ boy oh boy  _ there was just  _ so  _ much to talk about, what first? Maybe start with an  _ icebreaker…  _

“Why don’t we start by,  _ introducing ourselves  _ to one another…”

It looked like she was going to have to help everybody with that, she started by patting Brainz’s shoulder and getting the respective cringes out of him.

“I am sure you gentlemen know that this is  _ Brainz.  _ Brainz? We are in the company of uh-”

What were their titles again? Wait no, she got it, her arm gestured to each one and she even tried to sound ‘cheery’.

“Mister, ‘Private Steven Eeneyae’. That’s ‘Private Jake Mollomor. Aand Mis- Corporal Andrew Collicks sir. They are part of the  _ Military!  _ And they are here to  _ help  _ us!”

Wait… was that right? Toriel felt this sharp pain inside of her, felt like something was flaring up. Without further warning,Brainz broke free from his ‘enchantment’ and snapped at everyone starting with a really snide exhale.

“Uh-  _ No they  _ **_ain’t!_ ** The  _ fuck  _ are they dosing you with?! They’re fuck’n  _ killin  _ everyone!  _ Help’n  _ **_them-SELVES_ ** work on their  _ aim.  _ MAYBE!”

… No, he was  _ right.  _ Brainz was completely right! The painful sensation subsided, it was almost like it was linked to his anger… gone when he finally released it. Toriel could feel his fierce temper rising up. Unfortunately she couldn’t feel the same in the opposing party, instead she would hear Andrew piping up as well.

“Oh that’s  _ BULLSHIT!  _ You make a mess here and you’re gonna try and pin it on  _ us?  _ It’s just  _ like you,  _ you fucking  _ cockroach!”  _

Toriel immediately moved to put this down, but her words were easily overshadowed by the angry retort from Brainz.

“ _ Try me!  _ I’ve been through and  _ back  _ this whole place and it was  _ real easy  _ comin back, what with you guys going all  **_IRAQ_ ** here, searchin for fuck’n  **WMD’S** while you’re here sittin on your fuck’n ass, you little OXYGEN THEIF!” 

“ _ FUCK YOU!  _ You piece of  **SHIT!”**

“I guess the stress get’s to ya, pick a job where you never gotta do anything but wipe yer own  _ ASS,  _ and then you gotta do something  _ IMPORTANT?  _ I’d get trigger happy too! These monsters are  _ ‘reaaaaallly SCARY’  _ when they throw fuzz at you  _ OROROR  _ stand there,  **_MENACINGLY.”_ **

While the other two soldiers had joined in on the argument, Andrew shouted the loudest and was the only one intelligible. 

“ _ Oaaah  _ keep spouting your  _ fucking LIES!  _ Keep going! Like you  _ bullshitted  _ your brainwashed friend there! You talk about killin, you like how you’re gonna get HER killed?”   
  


Toriel wasn’t giving her best to stop this, she desperately wanted it to  **STOP** but… Everytime Brainz spoke, half of her wanted to stay quiet because it agreed with him. She was afflicted so much by this inner flux that her grip on Brainz weakened and it allowed him to break free… However, he seemed to have forgotten about that and only took a step or two forward so he could turn around to face her. 

“ _ Toriel,  _ you gotta  **fucking** believe me! I SAW it! They’re fucking KILLING people! Th-there was a place? It’s in the Hotland! There’s like this  _ lab  _ and it goes underground- I mean  _ more  _ deeper? A-and there’s like fucking  _ fifty  _ people  _ HIDING  _ from these guys!”

Like it was derived from a show of comedic aptitude, something very relevant to his words introduced itself into the argument. A pulsating tone came from Brainz’s person. 

It made everyone just a little more frantic, but no one was more set off than the person who knew what it was, Brainz dove into his pocket:  _ that  _ was enough to make the three men overlook the grenade in Toriel’s claws. They saw the most dangerous man in the US reaching for a gun and it was all impulses from there. 

The danger came at her from the blue, Toriel never could have prepared for it. The whole room was taken over in an instant. The precursor to death took hold of every inch, its presence was everywhere, suffocating every rational thought and leaving the monster to choke. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t  _ control,  _ all she could do was feel the world…  **_slowing down…_ **

* * *

**_INITIATE:_ **

**_Slower and slower for all the time in the world to analyze the turn of events._ **

**_ASSESS:_ **

**_3 IMMINENT THREATS_ **

**_1 CLOSING_ **

**_2 FIREARM_ **

**  
  
  
**

**_1 FRIENDLY_ **

**_ACTION:_ **

**_KILL_ ** **_INCAPACITATE THREATS_ **

**_DEFEND FRIENDLY_ **

**Take a step back, have yourself a break. Coordinate your moves now because you won’t be thinking in a second, no room, no** **_time._ **

**_OBSTRUCT FRIENDLY, DISTANCE FROM THREATS._ **

**_DEBILITATE THREAT 1: CLOSE QUARTERS_ **

**_RANGED DISARM: THREAT 2_ **

**_DEFEAT FOOTING: THREAT 3_ **

**_DEBILITATE: THREAT 3_ **

**_CLOSE DISTANCE: THREAT 2_ **

**_DEBILITATE: THREAT 2_ **

**_GROUP THREAT 1, THREAT 2, THREAT 3_ **

**_DISARM THREAT 1_ **

**_DISARM THREAT 3_ **

**_SECURE FRIENDLY_ **

**_THREATS DEBILITATED_ **

**_FRIENDLY SECURED_ **

**_ASSUME NO CASUALTY_ **

**_MAX ALLOWANCE: 13 SECONDS_ **

**_OPTIMAL: 8 SECONDS_ **

**_PROCEED_ **

* * *

Toriel seized Brainz by his shoulder and threw him to behind her. She made one step to the side to fully conceal him  _ and  _ for extra momentum as her left arm shot straight out to her side. Andrew’s neck collided with Toriel’s arm at full speed, defeating his lunge for Brainz and sending him back first to the floor. The same arm that took the soldier down swiped forward, the claws on the end of it produced a swift bolt of flame. The fireball struck Jake’s cupped hands, causing him to separate them and drop the  **Beretta M9** he was raising towards the monster. A much larger attack disembarked from Toriel’s claws, the magic projectile slipped under Steven’s open footing and hit the floor behind him. The impact with the floor just beyond him caused a small  _ explosion _ , the force propelled him flailing into the air at a low angle. Steven would land just beside Andrew. Jake recovered before Steven hit the ground, Toriel already dashed for him and closed the distance between them. She grabbed his arm and threw him behind her with much more force and downward pull than Brainz: sending him to the floor with an elbow jab to his vertebrae.

The next thing Toriel knew, she felt a horrible pain in her head as she was tossing the other two pistols away from the soldiers. She was back in her own head without much of a clue as to what she just did but she still followed her priority and turned her head while the moisture dripped down from it. Brainz was standing in the hall behind her with his eyes at risk of falling out of his agape sockets. 

“ _Holy_ _ssh_ it….” 

That was all he would really muster to say: too shocked and perhaps  _ impressed  _ to do anything else except stare at her. He was safe though, and that’s what mattered… and now that let Toriel show how upset she was as her head kept throbbing. She looked down at all the writhing men with an arm planted to her hip and another wiping the RED from her nostrils. 

“I am  _ very  _ disappointed! What is the matter with you three?”

One of the downed men wasn’t willing to be scolded and tried rolling away from his comrades, Toriel would have no choice but to plant one of her massive feet onto Jake’s chest.

“That is  _ enough!” _

She cried out fiercely and made sure the other two weren’t going to try anything.

“I  _ asked  _ you to relinquish your  _ weapons  _ and to act  _ civil.  _ Not only have you disrespected me, but you have placed your own lives at risk! The last thing I ever wished for any of you was to be forced to act against you for your own good!” 

She had to stifle a wretch, the very bad memory that took place here was brought up with how similar her words were. She had to take a sharp breath and lay down the law again, making sure the grenade took the center of the spotlight.

“If anybody here makes a further attempt to arm themselves, I  _ will  _ unleash this weapon upon us  _ all.  _ This is my  _ final  _ warning.”

An indignant wheeze came from the floor as the corporal rolled over and coughed.

“He was pulling out a fucking  _ gun  _ on us _ ,  _ you psycho bitch! What were we supposed to do?”

Brainz was  _ going  _ to sound off with his own brand of indignation but Toriel was already on top of it. 

“ _ No,  _ he was  **not!** Brainz was going to show me a  _ pager device!  _ He was not trying to harm you in any way!”

Brainz nodded for her but then squinted and lost his momentum.

“Uh-  _ yeah!  _ **Assholes!...** Uh-  _ how didja know that?”  _

Andrew had the angrier of questions.

“How the  _ fuck  _ were we supposed to know that?”

She had no choice but to agree with him, still this applied to what she was trying to teach them.

“I suppose you could not know, but this is exactly what I wished to go over. You let your assumptions and poor opinions dictate your actions without so much as even  _ considering  _ your judgement. Tell me, Corporal: do you have personal knowledge about Brainz? Have any of your dispositions come from your own heart or were you told how to feel about him?”

“Man, I don’t fucking _know!_ We’re just following our god- _damned_ orders! Brainz is a fucking **terrorist** and we got _dragged_ out here to hunt him! That’s IT! I don’t know fucking _shit_ about what everyone else is doing out there! You heard everything _we_ did, I don’t know what’s fucking going on!”

Toriel looked to Brainz, first with a nod to help him trust what Andrew said and then she gave Brainz a look that silently asked him to resume his story.  _ He  _ gave her a nod as if to thank her for the opportunity but then double back on shaking his head. He sounded rushed and out of breath strangely.

“They’re fuckin killin people, Toriel. They been tryin to kill  _ me-  _ the monsters, right? So I thought they were just that fuckin stupid? Going up against the fuck’n  _ military?  _ No-.”

He shook his head some more.

“- they ain’t. The monsters ain’t doin  _ shit. _ The military is just shootin em on  _ sight.  _ I saw it with my eyes, I swear. This one green lookin guy? He was unarmed, just standin there like a deer in headlight and they just  **_BAM!_ ** Fuckin shoot him and have a laugh about it. And then and then andthen anen, this fuck’n um.”

He threw his arm up to the ceiling for a second.

“Right outside in-uh  _ Snowdin?  _ Snowdin! Yeah they got a fuckin.  _ Sniper  _ on top of a building!-.”

Steven stirred from the floor, making his face visible while his eyes became glued to Brainz.   
  


“-and this bitch she’s just  _ shootin people!  _ I hear it as soon as I come back just  ***POP* *POP* *POP POP POP*** and then this one guy just comes up to her and is all like-”

Brainz put on a low voice, hushed enough that his rasping wouldn’t come in… just the mockery.

“I killed  **_twelve_ ** dumbass monsters and not  _ one of em  _ fought back!  _ Hur-hur-hur  _ this  **_sucks._ ** **”**

He concluded his rushed speech with a deep breath that sounded like it hurt on the way out with all the coughing. The way he spoke though, the stressed  _ tone  _ and how he made it clear he was only addressing Toriel: Brainz  _ really  _ wanted her to believe him. He had been through hell and just wanted this brief respite from it all.  **That made two of them…** He wouldn’t have had to say a single solitary word and Toriel would back him up. He just didn’t know it yet, he didn’t seem to retain  _ anything  _ from his past life. Maybe that was a good thing in the end, maybe it wasn’t… 

“I’m tellin you they’re having themselves a freaking  _ holocaust  _ or something! I was starting to think they  _ forgot  _ about me they’re so busy killin everyone!”

“I don’t  _ believe  _ you.”

That was from Andrew, Toriel had allowed the men to get to their feet on the condition they behave. The corporal though sounded off with his squinted eyes and sass. Brainz saw fit to imitate the man’s words.

“I don’t  _ believe  _ I fucking  _ caaare!”  _

Before another argument had the chance to come along, Steven addressed his mutual hostile in a much more genuine way, his voice shook as he tried to sound assertive.

“What did you do to that sniper,  **_did you hurt her??”_ **

Did he? It felt like he  _ did,  _ all Toriel could think of was that mangled  _ neck!  _ Did that happen? 

Brainz made a really snide sound with his lips.

“ _ What?!  _ You really think I’d be that much of a fucking  _ idiot?” _

Well this particular silence proved to be the most unbearable of them all. Brainz even got offended that it existed and he answered the question he felt should’ve been  _ obvious. _

“ _ No!  _ I ain’t going around picking  _ fights,  _ retard! How do you think I was able to get all the way back here  _ alive?  _ Because you fuckers  _ didn’t see me  _ **_coming…_ ** You’re too busy Rowanda’ing or Cambodian- _ ing!” _

He held out his arm, to show the dingy cloak concealing the bright… purple… jacket… 

“You see this? This is called ‘Me not wanting to  _ DIE’  _ and being sneaky-.”

Brainz spoke his torrent of profanity and bad temper, but all Toriel could hear were the whimpers. 

**“Twenty five years, I’ve been looking for you.”**

**“You can’t do this** **_twice…”_ **

**_“I’m sorry- I’m so sorry…”_ **

**_R o s e_ **

**_A heart washed with purple bore the terrible inscription, the pin on all the nightmares._ **

**_ROSEMARY RANTZ_ **

Brainz never knew… About Rose, about  _ Chara,  _ about-

“Asgore…”

The word escaped from Toriel’s mouth. The mere mention made her swallow it, just to cough it out when she gasped.

“Asgore!”

…

Oh god, she said it out loud, what would they say now?

“I’m  _ getting  _ to him! Christ, I’m going as fast as I  _ can!”  _

The worst that outburst could do was agitate Brainz, make him rush a topic he already had on his mind. Toriel could hear him clearly once more, the man was on a roll and even earned the silence from the soldiers: nobody wanted to interrupt him.

“There’s no way in fuck’n hell you guys  _ don’t  _ know about the SOUL thing, why the fuck else would you be killing everybody? But-but  _ whatever!  _ Whatever. You’re murdering everyone else but tell me, for  **_fucks sake-_ ** why are keeping the only  _ dangerous  _ monster ALIVE here? Y’know, the one who already  _ I dunno,  _ **KILLED** like- what did you say Toriel? Like six or  _ eight  _ or something of your ‘children?’”

Honestly, she didn’t even know what she told him at this point… it sure wasn’t Asgore’s plan, Brainz figured it out on his own. All Toriel could remember was being accused of working with her ex… it wouldn’t be hard to get there either with her involvement in all those deaths with her lack of action and hiding. If she had told Brainz eight, she could’ve been blaming Asgore for his own children… Why would she  _ do  _ that? 

She waited too long to answer him.

“Yeah whatever, not important again: but you should know  _ this,  _ Tori. I don’t know  _ what  _ your deal is with Asgore, right? But lemme tell you something, up until  _ whatever  _ hours ago. I thought you were  **_DEAD._ ** I’m serious! I saw these fucking assholes on this camera outside the door? And I just- I-i-.”

Lack of words, huh? He did care about her, why else would he come all this way back when he could’ve left? Why though… Why did he have to care for someone as awful as Toriel? The answer to that was somewhere in the slurry of groggy memories stuck inside of her. 

“I found out you were alive, when I was right outside of this fucker’s throne room,  _ you  _ fuckers-”

He pointed to the trio,

“- were set up in there with just about every gun in the world pointed at him, and I don’t even know how effective they’d  _ be-  _ I didn’t get a good look at the guy because. Just as I’m about to make my move, involved uh- blowing your friends up and shooting their shrapnel ridden bodies in the face- not important, didn’t do it- I’m about to throw the same grenade she’s  _ kidnapping  _ us with.”

Everybody got a good look at it, perhaps with a whole new perspective: this grenade saw the  _ world.  _

“This asshole named ‘ _ Massula’  _ is talking into his radio asking about this ‘Codename  **Lock’** _ Lock…  _ now that’s a funny name to call something, if not obvious. It coulda meant  _ anything  _ until I heard- I guess one of  _ you-  _ was it you, Andy? You got a big mouth on you, I think it was you.” 

“ _ Fuck you…” _

“Definitely you- I hear  _ him  _ talkin and then I hear.  **_You…”_ **

He shook as he pointed to Toriel, he couldn’t stop shaking his finger at her: what he wanted to say next had a lot of trouble coming out. Brainz ended up fidgeting and stuttering until he just broke off laughing and wheezing to himself. Until now, it looked like he was trying to smile or find the humor in this, but now he was dead cold and looked Toriel right in the eyes.

“Toriel, I almost passed out right there, I swear to god. I thought that I had freaking killed you by bringing these guys here, I had a panic attack when I saw the camera before: I doubted if I wanted to even try for a  _ bit…  _ But I heard your voice right before the exit.”

_ There  _ was the smile, the most disbelieving one yet, he had to shake his head too or else his body wouldn’t allow him to kid himself. 

“I fucking turned right around and I made a B-line all the way back to get you and uh-.”   
  


Arms splayed out, voice all wobbly.

“-Here I  _ am…  _ Your piece of shit, good for nothing rescuer.” 

**  
  
**

From the moment Brainz brought out that rare and vulnerable side to him, Toriel was fighting the urge to tear up. She lost here, one of her claws tried to rub away the moisture from her eyes but there was no hiding this, not when she had another hushed message for herself.

“I’m such an  _ idiot…”  _

It wasn’t his fault but Brainz just kept finding new ways to make her cry, even if Toriel wasn’t aware as she was: the fact he disregarded his own freedom and chance at life for her was just too much. What a sight though… seeing her sniffling into her claws while she held a grenade up in the air to a group of soldiers and her ‘child’, 

None of the guys in camouflage really said anything, they couldn’t do much more than get a good at who Brainz really was. Could anything they were told about him match up with this? Was this the pinnacle of ‘cunning manipulative?’ what was there to manipulate? What personal gain did he have coming back here? 

And then it finally struck the monster, in a way that made her question how she couldn’t figure this out before. Her time in the ‘Rantz Family House’ and that apartment, the sweet sing songy feeling everytime Aunt Loisa was in the memory. Even the first time Toriel had met the guy, the  _ strange  _ way he acted, how fast some of his walls went down. 

Brainz _ did _ have something to gain coming back here.

**A mom.**

No matter how old he got, how much he hardened his armor: he had never been able to grow up. The little boy locked deep and far away in that sealed room, perpetually crying for a mom that would never comfort him. 

…

**  
  
  
**

“Hey hey hey,  _ cmon  _ now. Please don’t cry for an old crook like  _ me.  _ It’s fine,  _ really-” _

Toriel had  _ really  _ broken down at this point, almost as hysterical as the beginning of this eventful reunion. Everyone was already at the upper limits of their anxiety, now they were deeply uncomfortable too. Brainz though sought to get her out of herself by changing the subject and going on like nothing was wrong.

“Alright well,  _ anyway _ \- get this Ok? They got Asgore to do whatever they want because of  _ you  _ Toriel. Yeah, you! I don’t know how  _ chummy  _ you think you are with these guys but- freakin  _ Tori?” _

He wagged his finger in the air to get her attention and then pointed it at the soldiers.

“These guys,  _ *psh*  _ They’re here to kill you.”

“ **_What??_ ** Are you  _ serious??”  _

Steven objected, Andrew was behind him.

“ _ There  _ it is, there’s the scheme, oookay. I was  _ wondering  _ when you were gonna get to your point.” 

Jake said.

“Hmph.” 

Then he rolled his eyes. 

Brainz though, back to wagging his blood stained finger at them. 

“Nuh-n-n-n--n-no, you can’t deny  _ this.  _ I heard em talkin to ya! Guy’s threatening Asgore saying he’s gonna ‘tell em to KILL  **‘her’’** now when we’re talkin about ‘Codename  _ LLLLOCK’  _ and they’re callin  _ Asgore  _ ‘Codename  _ Pandora’s fuckin BOX.’...  _ I may be a sad sack a shit, but I ain’t  _ stupid.  _ Now I dunno  _ what  _ your deal is with Asgore, but he  _ sure  _ gives a shit about yoou! I mean I dunno if I’d let my entire kingdom  **_die_ ** for one person? But making sound decisions doesn’t seem to be his strong suit.” 

Andrew made a frustrated sound and did a little pace around while pulling on his cheeks for a moment.

“ _ Kill her?  _ Nobody told us  _ anything  _ about that!”

She had to agree.

“He’s telling the truth, Brainz.” 

Brainz wouldn’t have given a lick of consideration to anything coming out of a soldier, but the sheer confusion on his face and how he actually thought of what he would respond with for  _ Toriel?  _

“But… that  _ can’t  _ be right, these guys  _ gotta  _ know. They’re just trying to keep you  _ calm  _ so they don’t gotta clean up the  _ mess. _ These motherfuckers knew what they were gonna do the moment they fell down here, I  _ know  _ how these tactics work.”

“I  _ told  _ you, you mercurial motherfucker! I dunno what the fuck you’re  _ talking about!  _ You wanna know something? Up until I got told-  **_directly_ ** **from Captain Pailurn** **_himself-”_ **

Either Toriel developed an actual heart inside of her just for it to cease for a moment… or she could feel Brainz’s doing the same. She just saw him go completely motionless, his face was slowly resetting itself: going blank. It didn’t really matter what Andrew said at this point, Brainz wasn’t going to acknowledge any of it… he did let the man finish though, probably just because the shock had to wear off.

“-to goddamned sit here and defend Toriel here from.  _ YOU.  _ The only  _ *orders*  _ and lemme make sure to just get my fingers right here  _ * _ **_ORDERS*_ ** we had were to look. For  **_YOOU!”_ **

He even released a bit of his stress with an additional,

“God  _ damn!”  _

to himself. 

…

[ https://youtu.be/YeVGKGMARjM ](https://youtu.be/YeVGKGMARjM)

**  
  
**

“What. Did you say??”

Brainz addressed him with the softest voice, as if he had completely forgotten about the argument. He just scrunched his face and calmly asked that. Toriel had all but turned to stone. 

“.. _.What? _ ...” 

Andrew shrugged, already out of it and he asked Brainz his first non rhetorical or sarcastic question ever.

“Why’s  _ that  _ got you hung up?” 

“ _ Mnh-mn! MMn-mhn!  _ Your captain,  _ what's  _ his name? What did you say…” 

The soldier already sobered up from his bemusion.

“Erh, that’s not something you need to know.”

Too late for take backs… All Toriel needed to see was the green she put into Brainz’s eye get flushed away for the RED to come back. His sly rasp was back and the little boy was gone. 

“ _ You  _ said,  **Captain** **_*Pailurn*_ ** as in…  **_RICHARD. PAILURN?_ ** **He’s *DOWN* here?”**

His teeth did not separate when he said that name, Brainz tilted his head to the side as far as it would go and sent a morbidly curious look down the soldiers' way.”

“I’m not telling you shit.”

Andrew kept his bravado, but Steven on the other hand…

“ _ Y-yeah.  _ So what? You won't be able to  _ get  _ to him.”

His commanding officer wasn’t too happy with him… but that was about to become the least of his concerns. 

Brainz gave it a good ten seconds… and then he started laughing. His deep, brooding chuckle. He lost control of it quickly as it turned into a loud spastic cackle… He and Toriel both knew it wasn’t funny, but Brainz couldn’t help it. That’s just what he was taught to do when he got overwhelmed. Toriel was about to risk her life and approach him, even leaving the soldiers out of her attention, but in the midst of the wheezing: Brainz took a  _ big  _ sigh with an even bigger smile on his face. 

First, he shared the face with Toriel, asking her giddily.

“Was he  _ bald?  _ Did he sound like a  _ coowwboy?” _

She was helpless to nod submissively. 

Then Brainz screamed… with glee, clapping his hands maniacally. 

“And hee’s  _ STUCK  _ down  _ HEEEEEEREEE.  _ OHHH MY  _ GOODNESS,  _ HOW THE WORLD GOES  _ ROOOOOOUND!” _

He fell into more deranged spitting laughter and then just like that- abruptly stopped and whipped his head to the soldiers, one of them was in the middle of a comment while the others stood there beyond intimidated.

“The fuh? Did his eye change colors?..”

He leaned forward and shook his head  _ real _ slowly with a smug look.

“You guys have  _ nooooo _ idea,  _ heh aheh…  _ You wanna know something,  _ funny?”  _

“Shoot…”

From Andrew, with stupefied fear.

“Yyour captain… (heeheee) I  _ know  _ him… in  _ fact…  _ I used to  _ work  _ with him.”

“What…” 

“OOoooh  _ yesss.  _ Except. He used his  _ real  _ name back then: It went like:  **_Charles Rhattener…”_ **

Stunned silence again… something very bad was about to happen but Toriel couldn’t move. She screamed internally at herself but her body felt like it was stuck. She could  _ feel _ the burning sensation welling up, the fuel for the disaster. Please, not like this…

**  
  
**

Then Jake perked up, something came up in him and he spoke for the second time, earning the full blast of Brainz’s twitching face. 

“Rhattener? The  _ Black Market _ guy? Wait… wouldn’t that make-.”

**_*KRA-CKK!*_ **

Jake was cut off by a small explosion emanating from his armor and obliterating his heart, sending him down and killing him instantly as a shockwave of blood escaped his mouth. His two friends hadn’t any time to react to his demise as the same fate would befall them. Steven only had a second to scream as Andrew went down before the blast blew his chest open. 

Toriel screamed, surprise transitioned into horror. Brainz dove backwards the moment he heard the percussion, it took the red right out of his eye and brought him back.

“ **_HOLY FUCKING SHIT!”_ **

Dazed and on the floor, he saw the mess quickly becoming bloody and then looked up to Toriel as his only recourse. She was still with her claws cupped over her snout, not doing much more except staring.

“WHAT THE  _ FUCK  _ IS GOING ON?!” 

Toriel slowly looked to Brainz, seeing all the feverish mystery in him, they shared a look of mutual terror for a single moment and then…she figured it out. 

She knew what was going on, at least she was about to… but instead of working it all out to herself. She would take advantage of the sudden…  _ alone time  _ with Brainz to share what she knew with him.

**_Everything._ **

“I know…” 

“WHAT? What is it?  _ Tell me!” _

“First…”   
She was almost completely absent.

“You need to know how I knew…  **_your real name, Byran.”_ **

**  
  
[thesongthatmightplaywhentorieltellsyouasadstory](https://youtu.be/aOnlXhVNwxc)   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you miss him?  
> I know I did.


	27. 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The key to a healthy and happy home is to share,  
> Share what you have in common, share what's bothering you: your family will be there for you regardless.  
> It's always nice to talk...
> 
> Even about things, that aren't very nice.

“- but now I knew the truth and I came as fast as I could to help you.”

As she said that with her claws folded over her chest, Toriel meant it more than it could be appreciated. In the twenty or so minutes she spent elucidating, she had to reach back into the darkest parts of herself where the memories lay. It wasn’t easy deciding what needed to be said in this short time and it was made even more daunting with the  _ still warm  _ bodies sharing the room. For the sake of brevity, Toriel summarized what had taken place down here: the freshest of traumatic experiences inherited from Brainz.

What better place to start than the start of the worst things to happen to him down here? Where he sacrificed everything for her and took a seething blow to his hopes. How about telling him how he passed away as a bloodied heap on the ground? That would be the only of his deaths Toriel could describe to him.

Of course he didn’t believe her at first; his hermetically sealed mind had been picked, clawed, and forced open ever so slightly with every anomaly he had to come to terms with to survive, but it could never accommodate something as preposterous as this. She herself had yet to confirm this was within reality. In Brainz’s case though, he was never going to trust Toriel unless she told him something  _ nobody  _ was supposed to know.

Telling Brainz in perfect and painful detail, the things that transpired with him wasn’t enough: while he had some terrible lows… nothing was painful enough. The worst kind of experience with her didn’t phase him: Brainz only shook his head at the premise of shooting her point blank. No, not deep enough. In the end, what won Brainz over would be the first thing he’d ever want to forget… but also the last thing he ever would,  **because it was where his name came from.**

“You have a piece of paper in your pocket. It’s a drawing she made of you and her, it is your only keepsake of Adreemia. And your name. Is your only keepsake from the life you used to have.  **It was a promise to yourself that no matter how dark of a place you ended up, you would never forget her.”**

Everything after that would be taken to heart, Toriel had tore open the calcified and shriveled thing to let everything else in. Brainz ceased his objections and just watched her with that broken look on his face, the same look he gave her when she betrayed him… this stung the same and Toriel could feel the rage taking hold. Again, for the sake of time, for  _ His  _ sake: Toriel left out just about everything else. Brainz wouldn’t have been able to take it, she wouldn’t have been able to force him back to these places anyway. 

Again she would repeat herself, Toriel could do this a million times over and it wouldn’t be enough.

“I am…  _ so.  _ So sorry, Byran.”

  
  


Brainz… just closed his eyes and sighed with the deepest breath he could manage without giving in to a coughing fit… it quivered on the way out. Suddenly his balance became unstable and the dining room table would barely keep him from collapsing to the floor.

Toriel was there immediately to help him-

“Oh goodness!”

-but Brainz held out an open palm to stop her as he pulled himself up, relying on his grip to the table. He muttered and slurred something under his breath, still not seeing anything.

“Fine. fine. Is’fine.”

He tried shifting himself backwards, away from Toriel. His grip slipped and he fell to the floor, his head was inches from a creeping pool of blood. 

“Oh my stars, are you alright??” 

Toriel stepped right up to him, Brainz just started murmuring without trying to get himself up again. She couldn’t make out what he was saying and crouched down closer. As soon as Toriel lowered herself a fist introduced itself to the side of her muzzle. Brainz sent her spiraling down with a suckerpunch. When Toriel hit the floor Brainz found it much easier to leap to his feet and dash for one side of the room, he hurried back with a pistol and cocked it with the barrel just inches from her wincing face. 

Honestly, the punch didn’t really hurt that much. Toriel saw this coming a mile away; not just because it had happened last time but that she would’ve done the same thing to herself. Brainz had every right to do what he would here, Toriel would deserve every last bit and already felt all the horrible feelings in the world. 

Brainz glared at her with his brows arching as high as they’d go, it was such an intense look of contempt. Toriel did nothing except wait for what he would do. He stared and stared, the gun in his hand began to shake, Brainz starting wincing and darting his eyes away. He struggled with himself until eventually he pressed his eyelids tightly together and painfully exhaled through his gritted teeth. When his eyes met back with Toriel’s, they looked so tired and glassy. The shaking stopped and then he grunted with his voice still flattering.

“If you ever. Say that name again-.”

The thought of it caused him to hiss a nervous snicker that he had to savagely fight to stop and refocus, everything following came out as stilted whispers.

“-(I swear to god)  _ I will put every motherfucking bullet in this room into your head…  _ Do you understand me? If you talk about this to  _ anybody.  _ **_Anybody._ ** I will kill you in the  _ slowest way possible.” _

He willfully shook the gun and prodded it closer to her face, going into mostly hushed hysterics… He looked desperate and scared.

“Do you  **_fucking_ ** understand me, Toriel?”

Brainz gave her a moment to think about his proposal, starting to go light headed from his shaking breaths. 

“I do.”

Toriel finally spoke, there were two names he could’ve been speaking about. It was easy to assume which one he was talking about. She knew all about ‘forbidden names’ and the places they took you when you weren’t prepared. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to remind him how sorry she did this to him, he wanted nothing but to end the thought and so did she. 

Brainz had himself an angry little spasm before he set the weapon’s safety back and pulled away, he would toss the sidearm onto the table beside the unexploded grenade. Brainz let his back face the monster as the tangent came to be.

“ _ You know-.” _

He brought his voice up to a brash level. 

“- I _actually thought_ this place was running out of ways to **_fuck me_** over the table! I mean _I’d seen_ ** _SHIT_** all kinds of _fucked up?_ You know- _I-yae-_ **I guess you’d** ** _know, HUH!”_**

Brainz spun around and directed everything at her.

“You fuck’n _ know!  _ You know what I  _ been through!  _ You know all the fucking bullshit, you know the fuckin  _ episodes!  _ You know  _ everything,  _ you son of a  **bitch!”**

Was it a question? It certainly was rhetorical even if he was overestimating Toriel here. She had every bit of memory he did but that didn’t mean she knew how to find them. Everything the monster inherited was like a chamber filled with millions of shards of broken glass all swirling around inside of her. Toriel was only able to pick out what she told him by the most long and painful shards that stabbed into her…  _ everything  _ hurt immensely, discriminating the trauma was the hard part. 

“I thought I had seen it  _ all.  _ I thought ‘ _ What else could this fucking place do to me??’  _ What’s  _ left?  _ The worst that could happen to me would be if something fucking  _ killed me,  _ but that would be an act of  _ MERCY!  _ So I think I’m almost  _ out!  _ But  **_NO!_ ** **NO NO NO NO** **_NNNOO!_ ** **OF** **_FUCKING_ ** **COURSE NOT!** I come back for you and whattaya do? Ye-yeyeye-ye you fuck’n turn on me and then you get me  _ killed?  _ And then you fuck’nnnnnn gimme some ‘Space time fucking mind reading  _ roofie!’” _

Brainz finished with an infuriated growl, he turned his back to Toriel again just to mutter something aggressive to himself. His body language sure was aggressive. 

The monster rubbed her sore face and tried to set something straight in a calm voice she found from nowhere. 

“Brainz. I never intended for this to happen… it was an accident I had no control over.”

The muttering stopped and the spite and sarcasm flared up. Brainz provocatively rebuked her.

“W-what was an accident? You  _ fucking me over and attacking me?  _ **_Or-oror_ ** You  _ violating  _ my dead fucking  **_corpse?!”_ **

It really wasn’t easy to keep a calm temper in light of what just happened but being yelled at really chipped away her cool. Yes, Brainz was allowed to be upset: it really didn’t feel like he was blatantly ‘angry’ but confused and frightened. Still… Some of the new definitions she learned from him, made his words sting a little more. A little indignancy slipped out, causing Toriel to squint at him.

“That is  _ not  _ fair, mm-. I could not have been more  _ ignorant  _ to what was truly transpiring. And as for what happened when I discovered you- I had  _ never  _ any experience with SOULs, let alone  _ imagining  _ the lack of consent on my part.”

All that seemed to do was further exasperate him. Brainz swiped his one arm at her and sought to dig further into his heels. 

“You.  **_VIOLATED._ ** _ Me!” _

She couldn’t contain herself anymore, it felt like fire was burning into her head. 

“ _ I.  _ Didn’t  _ MEAN TO!!” _

The outburst shut him up, but she wasn’t done yet.

“I  **_never_ ** would have allowed you to leave if I knew even  _ slightly  _ what would happen. I never would have tried to  _ stop  _ you and I  _ never  _ would have come into contact with your  _ SOUL,  _ and put myself through the unprecedented  _ unabridged  _ **TORTURE** I endured pursuing you!” 

For some reason, Toriel thought about the shrill voice Margillia had: how painful it was to listen to her shriek. She didn’t mean to yell like this but if she didn’t, she probably would have exploded. 

“The fuck are you  _ talkin  _ about?  _ Torture?  _ What torture?” 

[Twisted Emotions](https://youtu.be/2SJ1eh9TqJs)

  
  


Oh how she went  _ grave,  _ no emotion was allowed to try and describe this. 

“Brainz. You do not  _ understand…  _ I don’t think we have  _ ever  _ understood each other prior to now. You need to know that.  _ I did not  _ simply  _ ‘inherit’  _ your memories, they were not just presented to me when your SOUL came into contact with me. What followed the last thing I did in this world, I could never describe to you.”

Why lead him on? Why try to describe it? Toriel went right to the point and looked Brainz dead in the eyes with her ‘dead’ looking eyes. 

“I lived  _ through _ all your memories…” 

“What?...” 

He was too disorientated to be angry at her now, helpless to listen to what she would tell him.

“I experienced  _ everything  _ you did; every waking moment, every infliction of pain,  _ every bit of heartbreak,  _ every  **_insufferable_ ** day of  **_sitting and waiting…_ ** I saw it, I heard it, I  _ felt  _ it. I was  _ you _ but  _ more  _ than you. The only thing that made your life any more horrendous to live was that I could feel my own sorrow for you while it all happened. My own horrible realization that there was nothing I could do to help you. I was as  _ useless  _ as I was in life to save  _ anyone.  _ If you can only take away  _ one  _ piece of knowledge from this, know that:  **Everything you went through, I did too.”**

Toriel turned to glare into her tightened claws, her tone flattened into something sinister.

“The trauma would have killed me… If I hadn’t  _ died  _ already. It waited for that, just so I couldn’t  _ get away.  _ Nothing could spare me from  _ knowing.  _ This all happened outside of  _ time,  _ all of the years I spent in your world amounted to  _ nothing.  _ The insignificant moment that separated my eyes closing and then opening again in my bed.”

Back to looking at him, all Toriel did was move her eyes: she was still arched over and directed to her trembling claws.

“I only learned that it was not the worst nightmare I have ever endured, by the sound of your voice beyond the door. Everything ran through my head a second time… I wasn’t even aware of what was occurring until…”

She gradually rotated her unsteady claws to get another look at the brandings on the back, then moved her arms to let Brainz see them. After he gave the sisters to his shoulder tattoos a good long look, one of Toriel’s claws decided to point toward the stinging sensation that lingered on her snout. 

“I was.”

That was from Brainz making a small and stupefied digression. 

“ _ Wondering.  _ About the nose. Y’know, cuz uhm. Y-you guys don’t got blood or somethin…”

Toriel lowered her mitts, glaring into Brainz. 

“Not blood. I inherited this from you. It’s not blood.”

Brainz was ready with a reply for that but he put it away before opening his mouth, he must have worked it out to himself. Nothing more needed to be said about the matter. 

Even knowing Brainz inside and out as she did, Toriel was unable to discern what was going through his head right now. He probably didn’t know either, how could he? How was anybody supposed to react to this information? The indecisive expressions on his face paired with the lack of motion or normal retort: part of him did not want to believe a single piece of this. Despite its best efforts though, this cursed reality was breaching into his mind. He was slowly realizing and accepting this, helpless to do anything but. 

She continued with something that didn’t  _ need  _ to be said and in a way it was gratuitous to mention but Toriel wanted to leave nothing to wonder and fester over. 

“For the purpose of making myself clear, the experiences shared with me. Were nothing short of  **_torture,_ ** chronic and sustained pains far beyond the worst I could imagine.  _ Nothing  _ came close in comparison: Not the perilous journey I took through my old home as it crumbled around me, not the dozens of human bodies and  _ countless  _ piles of dust I stumbled upon or the stench of  _ death _ that lingered in the darkness,  _ not  _ the creeping comprehension that were all  _ doomed,  _ **_not_ ** the repeated instances where I almost perished from the great hazards,  _ and not even my discovery of your  _ **_mangled_ ** _ and  _ **_bloodied_ ** _ corpse sprawled onto the ground and how your remains  _ **_fell apart_ ** _ when I tried to lift you up.  _ Nothing I have dictated to you can be compared to the unending  _ blight  _ that was your life…” 

God it felt wrong putting it like that but it also felt  _ good  _ purging that  _ bile  _ from herself in the way that it was no longer eating at her. What a horrible thing to do though… so  _ judgmental.  _ How else could she describe what she experienced? This vicarious life was a  _ farce,  _ it was gnarled, rotted and laden with venomous barbs that eviscerated any who came close. ‘Misery’ was the only way to describe it. Anything unanimous had to do with pain unabridged. That was how it stuck to you till the end of time,  _ pain.  _ You couldn’t forget something so fundamental and overbearing, the defining trait to your merciless existence. And now she was inflicting it on him again, forcing him to remember and opening all the misshapen wounds. 

Now though… they had something in common. Brainz had yet to know how much more they shared but right now? They both knew pain. It led Toriel to the last thing she wanted to put out as she stood still as the dead with her slumped posture. 

“I will never truly recover from this, it will haunt me until the day I fall again and even when I go,  _ I am not sure what will happen.  _ I could be fated to experience it  _ forever,  _ I could not be more fearful of the unknown as I am now… But  _ Brainz?” _

She ensured their eyes met once more, standing herself back to proper posture. This glint of hope spoke her words for her. 

_ “I have no regrets for what has happened to me.  _ For everything that burdens me now: I was given the opportunity, I was given the ability to truly help you.”

She did not want to smile, none of the feelings inside of her warranted it. For some reason though, Toriel couldn’t help but feel it forming on her. Her eyes turned to glass and her voice weakened to a whisper.

“I can  _ help _ you, Brainz-.”

Toriel was shaking, she looked as desperate as she was giddy. Her arm outstretched, a gesture to hold Brainz’s hand as she got to her knees to make it easier for him. 

“- I can help you now, no matter what happens to us next: I can  _ be here  _ for you. I want to give you everything you’ve deserved and have been  _ denied,  _ I don’t know if I can ever come close but I can give you  _ everything  _ I have. I’ll care for you, I’ll  _ protect  _ you, I will support you no matter what you do.  **I promise…”**

Toriel gave him a promise just like all the others… But this one was different, she was going to make sure it stayed true. This last one to stand out from the mountain of devalued words and hopes, the first real promise ever given to Brainz. It meant more than that too. This was more of an invitation than anything else to be the mother he always wanted. 

Brainz would not accept this yet, it was alright though. Toriel was going to try her best, she knew this in her heart and that would have to be enough for now. 

…

“You’re gonna help me.”

After a minute of rubbing his face and looking at everything except the monster before him, Brainz chewed on his thumb and muttered only when he tasted blood. 

“You’re gonna help me?” 

A hand impatiently parted the hair from his forehead, the other one pointed at Toriel and shook with even more haste. 

“You’re gonna help me. Okay.  _ You’re gonna help me.” _

One deep breath and a long lasting cringe later, a switch had been flipped.

“Alright, here’s what we’re doing then. We are- you and I are going to  _ grab  _ just about as much as we can carry-”

One big circular gesture to all the dubious green crates with the army star on them that littered the home. 

“- we’re gonna  _ load up.  _ And we’re going to hightail it out of here and  **get the** **_fuck_ ** **outta here.** ”

He didn’t wait for a response, Brainz was occupying his thoughts with actions and doing just so he couldn’t think about all this anymore. He strolled over and re-armed himself with the handgun, pulling its slide back just enough to check what was inside. The moment his attention was free from the gun, it pounced on Toriel. 

“Let’s go, we gotta take inventory and  _ leave.” _

  
  


**“** **_Leave?”_ **

He took her by surprise, his kickback and the suggestion. Toriel was hit by a sense of deja-vu that took her all the way downstairs and didn’t stop until she turned to dust in the throne room, a ten second trip.

There was no way Brainz couldn’t perceive the fear and uncertainty he heard, he just didn’t make it obvious as he continued to hush and rush his words while he fiddled around the room.

“ _ Yes.  _ **Leave.** Look, we are  _ going to discuss...  _ **THIS-”**

He literally gestured to all of Toriel with the gun still in his hand.

“-when this is all over. But to do  _ that  _ we need to be  _ alive,  _ and to do  **_that_ ** we need to get  _ out of here.  _ I came here with a plan to get you and I  _ out  _ and it hasn’t  _ changed-  _ or maybe it has and you’ll know what I’m talking about now- I don’t know anymore- just start taking inventory on those crates, lets  _ go. _ ”

The gun was crammed into a purple pocket. Brainz tossed his stolen grenade up into the air before catching it and shoving it into another pocket.

Toriel was a statue in the middle of the room that only pivoted to face the man as he scampered about. The only movement she did throughout this was getting up to her feet when she realized Brainz wasn’t going to take her claw.

“ _ No-  _ Brainz. We  _ can’t  _ leave.  **_Brainz._ ** **We can’t leave.”**

She thought he didn’t hear her at first with his lack of reaction, Toriel got his attention on the second grab but instead of coming with his own question, he shrugged it off and enriched his emphasized words with sarcasm: complete with making some sneering faces at Toriel. Brainz was certainly trying to go back to ‘normal’....

“Yeah- _yeah-yuh-ye-yeye._ Yer gonna tell me about the _Barrier_ and how we’re all _trapped_ and- yeah I **_know._** Woulda been nice if you y’know _told me_ about that? Though I guess it’s on me for not _asking-_ but y’know what it’s fine. _”_

He caught his own digression and curbed the irritation.

“ _ Anyway,  _ plan. We’re going  _ back  _ to the capitol up the way you also failed to tell me about that would’ve saved me a shitton of time and pain and  _ shit  _ but- we’re  _ going back,  _ anyone who tries to stop us  _ dies,  _ and when we  _ get there.  _ We are  **_GOING-”_ **

He really made sure to over enunciate here, getting right up to Toriel so she could see the exaggerated expressions. He would soon abruptly stick an outstretched finger right up to her face.

“- to kill Asgore and everyone in the room with him. And  _ before  _ you even think about bringing up what I ‘promised’ you.  _ Newsflash-  _ I  _ gave  _ everyone a chance and they all tried to fucking  _ kill me  _ after taking one look. And  _ now  _ they’re all dead! So.  _ I don’t wanna fuckin hear it from you!  _ If you wanna say  _ I  _ fucked up, well  _ you  _ fucked up too and you  _ are  _ fucked up too!”

He caught himself inside of another digression and backed off. The funny thing about it too was that Toriel would’ve never brought up that unfair promise she extorted from him. She never would have even thought of the word if she knew what she did now. It would be like if someone made her promise to leave the RUINs just like that, the farthest from the comfort zone. The worst part about this was that even with all his cruel afflictions and memories, Brainz still  _ tried  _ in the end. He was stronger than Toriel in so many ways...

  
  


“ _ Anyway.  _ Your ‘no killing’ policy went out the window when you opened it for ‘fuckface’ and the military to hop in. We got no other choice now: we wanna leave? We gotta go out the back door but it turns out it’s on a turnstile-  _ y'know  _ like they have in New York City? For the subway? How you gotta-”

_ Another  _ digression, he wouldn’t be slipping like this so much if he wasn’t so nervous. His arms shook before him to clear the air as he stuttered. 

“-Anywayanyway- _ anyway!  _ He’s holdin the  _ only  _ tickets outta here. We  _ kill  _ him, I use his ‘ _ Bossmonster Soul?’-” _

He couldn’t say that without air quoting and squinting.

“- and then since you’re a monster, you can take one of the six  _ human souls  _ he has and then we’re on the platform for the ‘Get the fuck outta here’ train!”

There it was again, Toriel felt herself seizing up and losing her ability to move. New types of ‘horrible’ came to mind, and she had to fight the new part of her that agreed with this plan. It did make sense after all… 

She and Brainz were able to make their way to the other side of the underground separately, being  _ together  _ would only increase the odds too. Brainz would slay both monsters and humans who crossed their path. All Toriel would have to do was face Asgore again and assist Brainz in  _ killing  _ him. It would be  _ fine!  _ He chose this path after all, he’d just be  _ punished  _ for his killings and Toriel would have to decide if she  _ actually  _ hated him!  _ Then  _ they would just have to see their chances on the surface,  **_all those tanks coming up the road and the roar of the helicopters, the sirens on their way..._ **

**_ɎØɄ'Đ Ⱨ₳VɆ ₮ⱧɆ ₴ØɄⱠ(₴) ɎØɄ'Đ *₭₦Ø₩* ⱧØ₩ ₮Ø Ʉ₴Ɇ ₮ⱧɆ₥, ł₮'Đ ฿Ɇ Ⱡł₭Ɇ Ⱡ₳₴₮ ₮ł₥Ɇ._ **

**_ɎØɄ'ⱤɆ *₲ØØĐ* ₳₮ ₭łⱠⱠł₦₲ ₱ɆØ₱ⱠɆ!_ **

**_L̶̢͉̫̖̜̪̇͊̍͘͝E̴̩̋͜T̶̛̤͋̃̉̈́̋̔̅͂̚ͅ ̸̢̛̲̟̖̬̯̖̿̇̀I̷̫̮̰͌͐͒̕Ṫ̷̡̛͑̓̉̌͊͘ ̸̺̭͒̓͆͝G̷̤͙͔̦̉͒Ŏ̸̤̙̀͋͛̓_ **

**_̴̧̡̣̱̲̟̦̗͎̂ͅG̴͓͚̘̲͌̿̽̓ͅO̶̤̖̤͍̞͌̋̉̔̇̍̓͑ ̴̧̨̥̞̱͓̤̥͚̋͜B̸̡̹̯̥̝͑̔̏̿̕̕͘͠͝A̷̗͒L̵̛͉͈͍̻͇̂̿̇̒̈̔̽Ḻ̶̡̨̡͍̞̯͌ͅͅI̵͕͍̜̘̙̗͋͗͑̓̂̆͋̉̓̈Ş̴͎͔̯̠̦̬̙̦̯͋̎͂͒̽͝͠T̶̡̩͎̣̖͍͍̣͕̍̓Ï̸̢͓͓̝͖̝͉̖̀̎͂̿̃̓͜͝C̶͎̖̮͎͔͕̰̩͐̕ͅ_ **

  
  


She felt the grin trying to creep up the sides of her muzzle and the laughter trying to escape-

“ **_NO!”_ **

Her cry roused herself out from the darkness, the chills were left behind. Brainz would’ve known exactly what this was like. He took the exclamation personally though. 

“ _ No?  _ Uh- **_yes!_ ** That’s how we’re getting  _ out,  _ you fucking idiot! Don’t tell me ‘ _ No!’  _ unless  _ you  _ wanna come up with a plan- preferably one that  _ doesn’t  _ involve bending me over a table.”

“Brainz,  _ no-  _ we cannot do that- we can’t-.”

“I’m all  _ ears,  _ Toriel! You’ve been  _ such  _ a help for me!”

“Ch- _ Brainz,  _ please! You do not under _ stand  _ I am-.”

“A fucking  _ idiot  _ who wont  _ trust me-.” _

That was it, she couldn’t take it anymore. That last assumption jabbed into her heart and it let out its pain. Toriel didn’t mean to jerk towards Brainz and dominate him with her stature, she couldn’t control herself. Impulses took the wheel and she was shouting into his face.

“We  _ can’t  _ leave here, if we do you’ll  **_DIE!_ ** It’s too  _ dangerous!  _ **_I don’t want to LOSE YOU_ ** **_AGAIN!!”_ **

The pressure dropped, the shivers turned into tearful shudders as the sorrow found its place. She backed away from him and retreated her face into her claws.

“I can’t…”

She had to try again, suppressing a sob.

“I  _ can’t.  _ I  **_won’t_ ** let you end up like before. Not again.  _ Not.  _ Again.”

Toriel still had to see it though when she closed her eyes. The image of Brainz’s dissociated corpse were tattooed into her eyelids, it would bleed into every dream she had for years. The only willpower she had to overcome this curse was her burning dedication to never let bloody fate become reality again. 

“ **_Please… don’t go…”_ **

They shared pain in their faces for a moment, Brainz forgot his agitation as he stood unsure as to what to do or say. All that could be said was that he was immensely bothered, he had a lot of difficulty trying to form his response. Even when he did speak, his voice was so low: intended only for him to hear.

“Why- I don’t. Why do you even give a shit?”

He spoke up and started back on his argument, this time with more respect for her, more of a longing to make her understand him. His tone would go all over the place but he still spoke under his breath. 

“Look,  _ Toriel.” _

Brainz waited until she composed herself enough to hold eye contact even though Brainz loathed it. He’d turn his whole body to point down the stairs in a moment.

“We don’t have much of a  _ choice  _ here. You’re afraid we’re going to die out  _ there?  _ Well lemme tell you something, I’ve been afraid of that since I left here the first time, I still  _ am:  _ I’m fucking  _ terrified!  _ I’ve been in a state of constant terror for my life that keeps going up every time something  _ new  _ and horrible overshadows the  _ last  _ thing I was afraid of! But  **_you-_ ** know this now, I’m not ‘afraid’ that we’ll die if we don’t run for our lives right fucking now- I  **_KNOW_ ** that we’ll die if we don’t. It’s not a fear so much as not knowing WHEN it’ll happen.” 

He wasn’t… trying to undermine her, he sounded too genuine. She would’ve guessed where he was coming from if he didn’t make it obvious now. 

“I’m not just talking about getting  _ attacked  _ or something, someone coming through the front door- the back. No. And I ain’t just talkin about  _ us-  _ We’re  _ all  _ going to die Toriel, everyone down here is going to  _ die.” _

It was like his words became a key that unlocked another chunk of partitioned memory, in an instant both Toriel and Brainz had the exact same thing on their mind. That falling chunk of ice that reminded you how deep the pit inside you really went.

“Oh my god, the CORE…”

“ _ Yes!  _ Exactly!”

He didn’t question the change in topic or information. Brainz was more content with telling her what she already knew at this point. It was fine though, she needed a refresher on how hopelessly dire everything was.   
“I ain’t gonna get on your ass how you didn’t tell me that we’re on top of a fucking _volcano,_ but I didn’t exactly share with you that the fuck’n _army_ was here to kill everyone so I guess we’re even- But yeah! I was in there and these dipshits went and turned all the safety shit off and now it’s going to BLOW UP!” 

His arm finally brought out the thing that almost got him killed from his pocket, the tiny communication device that had been going  _ nuts  _ this whole time. The incessant beeping was hard to ignore but it went well with the flickering and dimming lights, it’d sure welcome the impending earthquakes. Brainz pointed impatiently to his pager.

“The freaking scientist? There’s this scientist asshole. She told me herself- she gave me this thing and made me help her do something with her electric doo-dad and said all she could do was  _ slow it  _ **_down._ ** Give me enough time to come and  _ get you  _ and then  _ leave!” _

He halted for a second or two to read the latest batch of luminescent words.

**WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THERE?**

The pager was returned to his pocket, it’d still be going off in there but remain mostly ignored again. 

“So we gotta fuckin  _ go.  _ And y’know what? You’d think I’d be more distracted realizing the only real reason I kept my worthless existence going and chasing after: the guy I’ve spent twenty years looking for so I could  _ rip his HEART OUT?  _ Is down here and I’ve never been closer? But  _ no!  _ I’m not even gonna make us commit suicide and  _ look  _ for him and actually try to  _ kill  _ him because y’know what? Having him be  _ stuck  _ down here like a rat in  **box** and then get fucking  **_VAPORIZED by an atomic fucking_ ** **_EXPLOSION?_ ** **_Good enough for ME, now let’s GO!”_ **

His arm did a full revolution in the air coming to a halt when he snapped his fingers and pointed to the stairs. Brainz pressed his lips together and stared Toriel down, his patience was spent and nothing she would say would accomplish anything but dig Brainz further into his heels. If anything, she had no idea how to counter this because Brainz was  _ right.  _ What other chance did they have beside  _ leaving?  _ Every peril she endured with the added terror and consideration for Brainz’s life. 

She did open her mouth though to answer him, Toriel was unaware of what she  _ started  _ to say but the tone of it was taken as another objection for Brainz. It led him to clench his fists and throw his arms down, pounding the air. 

“ _ Oh _ my-fucking  **_GOD._ ** We  _ gotta fucking GOOOO.  _ Even if we  _ do  _ get out of here we still gotta get clear of the BLAST ZONE!  _ Tori- _ **_mothafucking-_ ** _ riel!  _ We DON’T. HAVE. THE  _ TIME.  _ For this  _ shit! _ .... Besides-.”

Suddenly his volume dropped down and his voice settled a guttural drone. That ‘switch’ flipped again. He cleared his throat. 

“- you said you’d support me with whatever I  _ did…  _ We both know how many people told me this but now  _ I  _ don’t know how many of them were  _ lying  _ to my face. I think  _ you  _ know though. Tell me Toriel, if it’s a lie or not. Because if it  _ is-” _

His head started shaking as slow as it could.

“- I don’t know what I’m going to do.” 

* * *

  
  


**_309_ **

“ **I don’t know what I’m going to do.”**

A man much further consumed by desperation and marred by weakness spoke those very same words as his life seeped from the numerous little holes in him, dripping to the floor that held three dead soldiers.

The monster never wanted to look at him. All he could see was her back decisively turned to him.

“Please- I need  _ help.  _ They’re gonna  _ kill  _ everyone, Toriel. I didn’t mean for this to- h-h-happen, I can’t stop it.”

  
  


It was  _ so  _ convincing, she thought. They told her he would try this angle, that his pity was counterfeit. It made the hurt from the broken heart rot, it became resentment before she even knew it. When she turned to him, she saw the stolen gun rising up, Brainz never saw the attack coming his way. After the smoke had cleared and the weapon pointed at Toriel, the burning light in Brainz’s eyes went out. 

“.. you hate me too, huh?... okay.”

He would nod absently, stopping a sniffle, looking into her eyes for the last time.

“...I’m sorry.”

The gun pressed its killing end into the roof of his mouth.

**_“NO!”_ **

Her shrieks persisted long after the crack of thunder and the body collapsing to the floor. 

* * *

**_314_ **

Toriel saw the very same gun that ended Brainz’s life rising up in his grip.

**_“NO!”_ **

Brainz suffered a surprised cringe and tucked the pistol back into his folded arms. The jumpscare didn’t please him very much.

“...  _ What?...”  _

  
  


“ _ Don’t harm yourself. PLEASE!  _ I’m not going to  **betray you!”**

Back to a blubbering moist faced mess, back to the consideration of forcibly arresting that weapon from him.

“ _ What? PSH-  _ yeah! I’m gonna bust my balls getting all the way back here just to blow my brains out! I just wanna know  _ if you’re actually gonna HELP me or  _ **_NOT,_ ** Jesus Christ!” 

  
  


He ironically said this while waving the gun around in a way that made some new instincts inside Toriel want to cry. The vision subsided, the echoes were nearly gone… it was fine. That was then, this is now: but that still didn’t excuse that it happened…  _ How many deaths happened right here? How many were her fault?  _ How terrible of a person was she? 

**_That’s all your efforts amount to isn’t it, making your children kill themselves right in front of you. You were always a terrible mother, you’re nothing but a terrible person now. Selfish, loathing, hypocritical, cowardly, egotistical._ **

**_Noone love you for their own survival._ **

**_Noone trust you for their own morality._ **

  
  


He was going to die if she helped him on his path, he was going to die if she  _ didn’t.  _ What was a monster like her to do? One of the most powerful monsters underground and she would be helpless to do anything but let everything happen while everyone she knew died around her,  _ because of her.  _

  
  


…

Death was permanently situated into her thoughts, Toriel gave up trying to oust it. Death to all monsters, death to all the soldiers and even the slim chance that it would reach every human on the surface… But then by the raw inclusion, Toriel had to think about herself for once, her own death… And then she had it.

“I know what has to be done…”

Brainz straightened himself and scratched his prickly chin.

“Oh you  _ do,  _ huh? I bet I’m going to like this…” 

No, he wasn’t and he wouldn’t be capable of hating it more than Toriel did. She was already back to crying from the traumatic throwback, this idea though would keep up the pain in her heart. Still… she kept a stiff upper lip for this proposal, this…  _ necessary  _ plan.

“There is another exit from the underground, Brainz.”

Brainz again wasn’t perceptive to her emotions and was only taken aback by the concept.

“Wait what? For  _ real? What is it?”  _

Well this could’ve been the fastest that Toriel let him down, his own deep rooted eagerness that she could wave a wand and make this all better just made what was actually going to happen so much worse. She only pointed to her front door and heard the grunted sigh coming from Brainz, it didn’t stop her from explaining it though without an inkling of joy to her voice.

“You will not encounter any monsters or soldiers, they have no further troops to send, I heard it myself, as for the hole… they have constructed a rope that you may climb.”

A single nod from Brainz meant he was in understanding so  _ far,  _ but again the lip pressing and sarcastic comeback.

“ _ Okaaaay  _ that’d be  _ great  _ and all, I woulda thought of the same thing to save us the trouble but uhm.  _ What about the Barrier?  _ We can’t  _ leave  _ without the damn  _ souls.  _ I can’t without Asgore’s and  _ you  _ can’t without a human soul or whatever…  _ soooo-.” _

She didn’t mean to interrupt him, but she had to speak now or else she wouldn’t have the courage to later.

“You don’t need Asgore’s soul to cross the Barrier, Brainz… You need a  _ Boss Monster’s  _ soul.” 

The pause and skeptical look on his face made it clear that this was redundant information for him, Toriel was going to let him figure it out on his own though, it was good for a child to work it out sometimes. That and she wouldn’t be able to speak another word without full on wailing again.

“OK? What’s the difference…? I don’t… I don’t under-.”

The starts to his replies grew more distant and less complete, the looks he was giving Toriel became more anxious. All they had to do was slip a second of eye contact with each other for Toriel to start tearing up into her claws and for Brainz to stumble backwards. 

“Oh no.  _ Oh. No… Oh  _ **_nnnooo_ ** Toriel…” 

His balance was only sustained with the help of the doorway, Brainz cupped his forehead and let out a terrible groan. Whatever tried to pass as innocence welled up inside of him was decomposing and fuming from him. He sounded like he was on the verge of throwing up.

“ _ Ohh my god…”  _

  
  


[Surprise! I'm a liar.](https://youtu.be/xNGQWMy6U1k)

  
  
  
  
  
  



	28. 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When it comes to a disagreement,   
> One of the first priorities you should have is getting on the same page as your child. 
> 
> Show that you want to see their side of things as much as they do.   
> But there is no need to try and get on 'their side'   
> You are both in this together...  
> From life...  
> and even death.

“- _ fucking  _ knew it. I.  **_Fffucking_ ** _ knew it!”  _

Brainz reveled in his breakthrough, ‘“reveled” as in pacing around restlessly and half contradicting himself out loud.

“I shoulda  _ fucking  _ known! It makes perfect  _ fucking  _ sense! Seen it coming a  _ mile away:  _ the fuckin  _ symbols!  _ **_*RRggh!*_ ** God! (I am) So fucking  _ Stupid!  _ **YOU-”**

He was onto her with a startling shift in attention, complete with loaded handgun pointing at Toriel. The way he shook it around though, he didn’t intend on threatening her with it. 

“-It’s fuckin  _ YOU. _ You’re his fuckin wife!  _ You’re the fuckin QUEEN!” _

Only one act of defense was made here, a simple correction from the accused. 

“I  _ was _ those things, I am no  _ longer  _ those things…”

Brainz didn’t seem to appreciate it too much. He just devolved to his maddened conspiracy talk, too angry or stressed to mutter to himself.

“Oh  _ you piece of SHIT!  _ You were fucking with me all along! I thought you were fucking  _ in  _ on this apocalyptic shit-  _ it’d make sense this is all a front, the niceness and the fuckin lies-  _ but NO! It just turns out you’re just fuckin  _ NUTS!” _

Considering his own internal issues and these circumstances Brainz didn’t really have a solid ground to point his fingers at her. It was OK though, he had a right to be upset. Toriel actually had to hide a small fleck of joy from him: he was taking this  _ so  _ much better her fears wanted to imagine. Brainz hadn’t used that gun on her  _ or  _ himself yet, this was going very well… even if he was starting to spiral with beads of anxious sweat on his head. He would break spontaneously to groan some form of “Oh my god” with each one sounding more guttural than the last. 

“I don’t  _ get you _ ! You fucking  _ leave  _ because you’re ‘ _ Oh so disgusted at Asgore for killing people’  _ so you  _ go  _ here and you send people over for him to kill?  _ OR  _ were you just doing the  **Bay of PIGS** on his ass?”

He stopped to breathe for a moment. Toriel did not say anything further, knowing it would only prevent Brainz from calming himself. He gathered  _ some  _ of his marbles and lowered his voice, speaking directly to Toriel now with a question for her that wasn’t rhetorical. 

“So. Were you  _ trying  _ to get me to kill him?”

Toriel had to compose herself as well, doing another sweep of her arm to her eyes to dry them. 

“ _ No.  _ Of  _ course  _ not. I never wished for  _ any  _ of this needless killing. Not harming him was one of the only things I asked of you, but that was my fault for putting you into such a difficult situation.”

Brainz’s hands turned palms up to the ceiling, he locked himself into a still shrug.

“Then. I don’t. Wh-. What was with all the ‘he killed all my kids and he’s  _ evil’  _ and all the dramatics and the  _ fuck?” _   
The sheer hesitation showed how absolutely stuck he was on the thought of all this. Toriel was stuck too, she never had to justify any of her actions to her children in the past. She never had to reveal to them how terrible everything really was with her  _ because they never came back.  _ Right now, she kind of felt like  _ she  _ was a child being caught red handed by their parents; at a loss for words and making something up as she went. 

“I was just… trying to  _ prepare  _ you for the journey you would be on.”

That didn’t work, Brainz would whip his head and squint his eye from stark outrage.

“ _ H’what?!  _ Prepare me for  **_what,_ ** letting everyone  _ kill me?  _ Walkin up to his door so he can cut my fuckin  _ head off?!” _

“ _ Noo…”  _

“Alright fine,  _ y’know what-  _ fine! But tell me this- you knew I wouldn’t be able to leave without killing him, your fuckin husband or  _ ex  _ or - _ whatever the fuck he is to you, it’s fucked up anyway-  _ won’t be able to leave unless I kill him… so you get me all  _ riled up  _ and then tell me  _ NOT.  _ To kill him! Like what the  _ fuck??  _ What’re you tryin to do?? Were you  _ counting  _ on me not following your idiot promise?  _ OR  _ were you counting that the fucking military would be right behind me and that  _ they  _ would just take care of the problem for you?” 

He waited. Outwardly Brainz sought an answer, but really he just wanted something to argue for him to be able to trust Toriel… she and him both. She could not give him either of those things, and only stalled trying to produce them. Brainz only grew more restless.

“ _ Well,  _ what is it?!  _ What was the plan,  _ Toriel?  **What. Was the plan?** Were you  _ trying  _ to fuck us all over?  _ Or  _ were you trying to save humanity? Or am I just giving you too much credit and you just wanted to usurp him so  _ you  _ could run the show?”   
  


He took his own assumption and ran with it right up into her face, spouting sinister and untrusting vibes.

“Is  _ that  _ what you wanted,  _ huh??  _ You let a bunch of.  **_Children._ ** Wander to their fucking deaths, make this happen so  _ you  _ could get the  _ spoils?  _ Is  _ that  _ it, Toriel? Is that what you wanted? Because I’m runnin  _ all  _ out of ways to think about it.”

With a quick flight, Toriel tore away from her failures. She shouted at them, just like she did in the many sleepless nights-

“ _ NO!  _ I don’t-  **_KNOW!”_ **

**-** only this time, her worst nightmare heard her and would answer back. Brainz stayed rooted to where he progressed, he came to a dead halt and his bemusment would only be genuine for a few seconds. Once he started nodding, the merciless sarcasm seeped in.

“ _ You don’t know…  _ You don’t know. You  **_don’t._ ** Know. Ye-y- you just dunno, kay. Aight then, you dunno.”

When the outrage translated to more volume, Brainz turned and appealed either to a crowd of people who weren’t really there or a trio of people who weren’t there anymore.

“She doesn’t know, everyone! She doesn’t know! She just  **doesn’t** **_fucking know!-”_ **

When it came to being incredibly harsh, he gave it all to Toriel.

“-  **you don’t know** **_why_ ** **you let this all happen AND now you don’t know what the** **_fffuck_ ** **we’re s’posed to do now! You don’t FUCKING KNOW! Of** **_COURSE!”_ **

  
  


“... But I  _ do  _ know what we need to do…”

That was her meek defense, it waited to come out and it waited for his response. 

In his anger, Brainz seemed to have forgotten that detail. He remembered it after basking in the short lived silence. The confusion on his face sobered up into stark disapproval. 

“No, we’re not doing that.” 

“Yes-”

She shuddered.

“- you  _ must.”  _

He shook a finger at her and his head, his retort would be greatly stressed. 

“ _ No.”  _

A step would be taken towards him and into insistence.

“ _ Brainz,  _ it is the  _ only  _ way I can  **_save_ ** you.”

“I ain’t fuckin  _ doing  _ that!” 

“But  _ please,  _ I  **_want_ ** this I-  _ I want this to happen…” _

She just couldn’t say the last part without the sobs breaking her up, it only further agitated Brainz.

“And I. Fucking.  **_DON’T!!”_ **

“It is. The  _ only  _ way…” 

“I’m not fucking  _ killing you!” _

His voice cracked with his arms shooting in both directions.

One lifetime ago, Toriel would be in tears trying to convince him not to shoot her while knowing it was inevitable.  _ Now…  _ it was like nothing she would say could make him raise the gun at her. It was the most horrible thing she could think of, her own demise didn’t bother her so much as the fact that Brainz would have to be  _ alone  _ again except for the company of the burden of what he’d done. It would save him though, and that was what mattered… But perhaps the  _ horrible  _ thing about this was she would  _ never  _ be able to actually save him: the only chance she saw and Brainz would fight to the end not to do it. This was going to be her curse, fated to fail and result in this death.

No, she had already seen too much to let this happen. She had to try no matter how badly it hurt.

“You  _ must!  _ I will not let you succumb to this place  _ again!!  _ You  _ MUST!”  _

“ **_Goddammit I said NO!”_ **

It was already a shouting contest, now it was a bout on who could turn red in the face first. Toriel spluttered with her words, begging for Brainz to take her life to save his own.

“ _ Let me HELP you!” _

Brainz wanted to take no more of this, he hunched over and cupped his ears.

“ **_Just stop!”_ **

Toriel’s desperate cries broke through Brainz’s hands, she insisted to the point of  _ demanding  _ this. She brought Brainz to his lowest point in the argument and had to stop when he started screaming.

**_“StopitstopitSTOPITSTOPIT_ ** **_STOP IT!!”_ **

  
  


Why did he have to care so much about her? He was supposed to  _ hate  _ her for what she did, he just couldn’t though. He hated himself, she hated  _ herself:  _ but it could never cross. All she was doing was hurting him even  _ now,  _ he was never going to defend himself against her: not unless she blatantly betrayed him to his face again.

But wait… she had already done that, Brainz just didn’t  _ know  _ it yet. Toriel laid off of Brainz and moseyed over to the dining room behind her. Brainz would uncurl from himself hearing the lack of her voice and stare in dreading anticipation for what she would do. 

She dedicated to start speaking normally again, pretending she wasn’t a teary eyed mess. 

“I have done nothing but harm you and put you into mortal danger.”

Brainz shrugged as high as he could and held his own trembling hands out, watching Toriel meander over the military’s stuff.

“Well  **_yeeeah!_ ** But  _ everyone’s  _ fucking done that down here, so what??”

Her claw depressed the top of a stiff plastic bag, she stopped and looked back to Brainz as the crinkle sounded through the room. Her response was as cold as the grave.

“It is my fault you were still trapped when the military arrived...”

“ _ What?  _ What do you  **_mean?”_ **

He really didn’t know if he should’ve been skeptical or not.

She lifted this opaque and rather heavy for its size, bag from the confines of a slightly ajar trunk. There were plenty of things Toriel could have said now, but she felt it’d be the most  _ efficient  _ to just hold the bag out… and remove what it held for Brainz to see. 

Within seconds, Toriel saw his eyebrows turning steep. Brainz almost choked on his words, he became so quickly overtaken by outrage and surprise.

“ _ YYoou  _ have my  _ fffucking  _ **guns!?”**

Rather than give him the opportunity to think about this and potentially return from anger to rational thoughts, Toriel tried to exacerbate the moment. All the horrible and  _ vile  _ she felt about herself every time she looked at the weapons would help her now.

“I wanted to believe you could overcome your ‘addiction’ to violence, but I was afraid you would not be strong enough to do so if I enabled you… so I confiscated them from you and buried them with a little lie.” 

It was almost like the shock from this put a thousand ton weight on top of Brainz, he hunched over cringing and gurgling with fury. The gun was still in his hands as they pressed themselves against his temples. This would be it, all the trust Toriel tried to earn from him would come crashing down. Never would it be easier to point the gun at her, to give into fires inside. Never did she ever want to manipulate Brainz like this but it was for his own good. 

Brainz became quiet now, brought to the point where the emotions could not find him anymore, no thoughts to tether his body down: he would be susceptible to detaching from himself. This period of flux foresaw the open and repeated defiance of death to his body but to any other it saw the most primal display of rage lashing out in truly barbaric ways. Toriel knew all this just from what she saw because she knew how it felt  **and she knew what she had done.** There would be nothing but regret when the fires died down.

There was a lone tremble through Brainz, he had curled himself into a kneel on the floor and was now slowly and steadily rising up. Then, an arm slowly extended towards Toriel… but it was  _ not  _ the right one. The gun and the arm that wielded it stayed looking at the floor. Her insides lurched down. Brainz did nothing but let a wheezy kind of laugh seep out from him.

“Y’know what? I kind of already figured you did that…”

It made him laugh a little more and made him shake his head all disappointed like.

Toriel panicked and blurted out the other morsel of guilt lodged in her throat. 

“I-I I would have also looked through your bag if you hadn’t awakened while you did! I felt too horrible to do it sooner!”

No… she failed. Brainz just nodded, he kept his head down though: he didn’t want to look at her. He sounded so  _ calm,  _ like she had pushed his emotions so far that they just rolled right back over to ‘0’. 

“ _ Yeah…  _ It’d make sense why you were so  _ off  _ about it, you just didn’t want me to find what you were hiding behind your back. I get it, heh.”

All Toriel could do was get a whisper out, before words were too hard.

“I’m sorry…” 

“Oh I bet you are…” 

Brainz took a couple steps up to her and blankly gazed into her sopping wet eyes, he cordially cleared his throat and took a breath so sharp it was more like a hiss. 

“May I have my weapons back now, please?” 

The same unoccupied hand held itself out. This was the closest he had stood to her, like he was just sure she wouldn’t do anything to him… maybe he knew he’d shoot her if she did, or perhaps he didn’t care anymore. Whatever the case was, Toriel couldn’t keep it up anymore. She did what he wanted and Brainz stepped right back to where he was, finally reunited with his things. 

It was a mostly quiet and uneventful affair now, watching him reach down for his backpack and at last make all the malice he carried with him useful. The little submachine gun he brought  _ *clicked!*  _ and  _ *clacked*  _ when he put the tallest magazine into it and pulled back the bolt to wake it up. The  **COLT COMMANDER .45** would replace the Beretta in his right hand, he would hold it up and press his cut-up lips against the side of the cold barrel and whisper softly to it.

“You’re with me to the end, baby.”

With the gun’s narrow belly full, it was cocked to life: the room was shrouded in the sound of it’s metallic belch. 

What now? Before the monster who had done nothing but fail was the person she failed at saving, coldly watching her with a firearm in each hand. 

“I just wanted to  _ help…”  _

Brainz didn’t have to answer her. But  _ someone  _ had to bring her the consequences of those words, he was all too familiar with that plight.

“ _ Yyyep…” _ _   
_ He croaked and let his arms rest to his sides. 

“I know what you’re tryn’ta do, ain’t gonna  _ work  _ but I know. You did this from the other side the first time I met you.”

She looked up to him, confused. 

“I knew what you thought about me. That I’m just a-.”

Brainz halted for a second just to hold up one of his guns, giving it a gentle shake when he continued speaking in this monotonous voice.

“- some immoral killer, just shoots people just like that.”

While his head was still affixed on his property, that fierce red eye met with an eye of lesser red color. 

“That’s why you took these away from me-”

He scoffed and for just a moment his lips curled up.

“- and why you felt like showing me now. You think I’m just that much of a piece of shit that that’s all you’d have to do to make me kill ya. You haven’t changed your mind a  _ bit  _ over me, and you allegedly know everything there is to me so really… ain’t nothing I can say can change your mind.”   
  


“No…”

She whimpered, the guilt made her cringe further.

“That is not what I feel at  _ all…” _

It wouldn’t matter if she did continue that sentence, Brainz wasn’t listening, he just shrugged.

“It’s alright actually. Really, it is. I had my doubts about you too. Truth be told though, I really  _ do  _ wanna shoot you right now. You’ve done more than enough to warrant me doing it out of  _ self defense…  _ like anybody would actually  _ believe  _ me though, least of all,  _ you.  _ Why lie? It’s cuz of you I went through ‘hell under earth’ I wouldn’t go through nearly the shit that happened to me if I had these things- bu-buh  _ hey.  _ Y’wanna know what’s real funny about this now?”

No, not really. She knew he was going to tell her regardless if she said anything, and that it wasn’t going to be funny. 

“How many of your ‘people’ I ended up killing? Just one, and even there I’m not so sure. Didn’t have my guns or uh- oh yeah, y’know I had a  _ shotgun  _ in this bag here right?-.”

He gave the open inventory a gentle kick to make it relevant for just a second, happy to digress from the depressing place.

“-didn’t get to use it much, not a lotta ammo, lost it pretty early on anyway but uh- I’d be  _ dead  _ if I didn’t have it, because you were so worried about what  _ I  _ would do to them, never did it cross your mind what they were gonna do to  _ me…  _ But I guess that’s the norm with you and your  _ ‘children’  _ isn’t it?” 

How dare he say such a terrible thing? That wasn’t true, it  _ was not TRUE.  _ She  _ warned  _ them about Asgore, she gave them the choice to choose the risk of death for a chance to leave over staying with her and being  _ safe.  _ No, it wasn’t on  _ them,  _ but she didn’t want it to be her fault… to let that nagging voice know it was right. 

If he said one more thing about her ‘children’ she would scream at him.

He started by exhaling loudly.

“ _ Well.  _ I’ve had enough of realizing how shitty we both are, if it’s all the same with you I’d like to move  _ on  _ from this- unless you have anything else you want to pull out of your sleeve. Cuz if you do, make it quick.”

There were at least  _ six  _ things but they wouldn’t be helpful right now. She went back to just looking morbidly depressed and fed up in silence. 

“You sure? Okay.  _ So  _ then-.”

With a swift motion, Brainz tucked his weapons into opposing pockets in the ‘Rosemary Coat’ he picked up the Beretta again and began fidgeting with it. 

“-we’re flat with each other, I’m a murderous psychopath with absolutely no redeeming qualities or things that suggest I’m still a real person and  _ you  _ are a conniving, manipulative,  _ scheming _ narcissist choking on reality, tryin to barf mine back up, that about right? Toriel-.”

He called for her with another more tired sigh, the rest of himself was settling back in, there was no anger to be found, just resignation. 

“- I think you're like the fourth worst person I know, but I came back here for  _ you  _ and despite everything now, that hasn’t changed. I am not leaving without you. And I mean  _ you,  _ alive: not your soul or whatever. Have I made myself clear?” 

He forced her to nod slowly, it made no sense at all but she had to nod. Brainz did a nod of his own.

“Good, in fact, I shoulda made myself clear the  _ first  _ time: maybe it woulda saved us all this. But uh- you say we don’t gotta chance in hell out there? Maybe that’s the one thing you aren’t fulla shit about. In that case? I’m fucked without any help, you’re all I got… Would be an idiot move to go out there alone. You don’t wanna move? That’s fine too, we’ll just sit ourselves down here and wait to die, I don’t care.”

She asked him, “Why?” with all the anxiety and bewilderment she could give to the world. For his own survival, this was the worst possible outcome but strangely Toriel could feel a small warmth touching upon her, Brainz would not leave her alone. 

To answer that autonomous word, Brainz folded his arms together.

“I’ve never given up on anybody before and I’d rather be dead than to let that change. Think what you want about me, it’s not gonna change what I’ll do.  _ So…  _ what do you want to do then?”

There was only a brief interruption in how stoic he looked, a mild tremor complete with flickering lights made him look away from Toriel for a second. It was like it was timed to side with Brainz and his escape plan.

Finally, Toriel was able to control herself and put away the crying with a strong sniffle. She damepened her sleeve on her eyes one last time.

“Alright-.”

She cleaned herself up and found just a little more strength to speak, nodding too.

“- we will leave this place,  _ together.  _ We will overcome whatever awaits us.”

Brainz unfolded himself and the way he lit up was just perfect. He balled up a fist just to give it an eager little shake.

“Well  _ all. Right!  _ Let’s see how far we can  _ get. _ Now, ya think you can help me see what we got in all these crates? We’re gonna need everything we can hold.”

The switch had been flipped again, Brainz could seemingly forget everything he and Toriel had against each other and focus on working with her to leave. He lifted his bag onto the table and opened it as wide as it could go, he himself was about to fumble with the nearest crate behind him when Toriel piped up.

“Wait.”

She expected this would irritate him, Brainz stopped in his tracks and drew out his voice.

“ _ Whaat…?”  _

“I am sorry, I do not intend to burden you any more, I will help you as much as I can. Whatever you need but… Before we go through with this: I really have no grounds to ask something of you, but could you do one kindness for me?” 

There was a squint as Brainz straightened himself up. 

“Uh ...what…?” 

Toriel moved aside and turned around to face the three bloodied corpses that had only begun to haunt her, Brainz figured what she was looking at before she spoke again. The three hopeful lives so violently extinguished and for what?

“Could you. Do something for them?”

He stepped up right beside her and shook his head rather quickly.

“Uhh-  _ nuh-uh  _ they’re fuckin  _ dead,  _ Toriel. Ain’t nothin  _ I  _ can do, I thought you were the one with the magic healing powers here.”

“I am  _ aware  _ of that, Brainz. I merely am asking you if you can… lay them to rest…”

“ _ Aww  _ what?? Are you  _ serious?”  _

Toriel was only figuring what she was talking about as a previous traumatic experience replayed itself for her. That little pocketed village at the end of Waterfall with the soldiers resting beside each other, their faces covered by their helmets. It was the best attempt at a ‘burial’ their comrade could do before he succumbed to the cold and weakness. She knew Brainz wouldn’t be capable (or willing) to do anything ‘proper’ either but  _ anything  _ was better than leaving them like this in her home to rot. 

“ _ Please,  _ they did not deserve this fate nor this disrespect.” 

Brainz struggled to put his frustration to words, his arms went all over the place as he made some stuttering sounds.

“Wha-Ghi-eh-  _ it- ye.  _ Ye-ye do know that there’s plenty more of em who’re gonna be  _ shooting  _ at us, right?!”

“No. These three did everything they were told to do, being told they were protecting us… They could not have known of the  _ true intentions…  _ They just wanted to help, Brainz.”

Again with that phrase, Brainz was halted by discomfort. He only broke out of it with an angry twitch.

“ _ Oough,  _ fine! Just.  _ Stop sayin that will ya?”  _

The stolen gun was again tossed onto the table, Brainz grumbled as he slid past Toriel and rolled up his sleeves. He partially stepped in the unified blood puddle and started to bend over for Andrew’s untimely remains but he stopped and turned around just to shake his finger at Toriel.

“Last fucking thing you’re makin me waste my time on. After this, fuckin  _ help me  _ gear up.”

She clasped her claws together.

“I will, I promise, thank you.”

Brainz just grumbled again and hesitantly crouched himself down. He would make his disdain very noticeable with very audible grunts and disgusted groans throughout this process… that is if he was even able to start doing it. Before he even laid his hands on the soiled camouflage, Toriel asked him something very peculiar. 

“What even happened to them?”

“H’what?”

Another voice crack came out of Brainz. He was too eager to get up and turn away again.

“ _ You  _ did this.”

He didn’t sound sure enough for that to be an accusation.

Of  _ course  _ Toriel was taken aback.

“ _ What?  _ I did no such thing!!”

Brainz  _ really  _ didn’t sound sure of himself now, but he put together a pretty unique theory.

“Wha-  _ sure you did!  _ You got all emotional and lost control of your powers and killed em, right? You’re really freakin strong and you control  _ fire, right?” _

Getting upset at him really wouldn’t be warranted now: it wasn’t like he could know all the years of learning and training Toriel had… Brainz  _ certainly  _ didn’t know about how long it took for her to become a ‘Master’ at magic… even if she didn’t want to, she kind of  _ had  _ to because of the role she was born into. The point here is that Toriel was the absolute  _ last  _ monster anybody should  _ ever  _ criticize about her abilities. That little throb in the back of head wanted her to (quite assertively) tell Brainz that she graduated her advanced class before his  _ father  _ was even born: all meaning that there was absolutely no chance in hell that anything he said could ever be partially true. Instead of all that… Toriel just sharpened her eyes enough to cut through glass and keep the indignancy to a minimum with a little hiss.

“That is  _ not  _ how our magic works, and that  _ especially  _ applies to  _ me…”  _

He reacted well to the hostility, of course he did. 

“MMmmmurgh, so you’re one of  _ those  _ people.”

It’s ok, Toriel would do the right thing and  _ not  _ yell at him. Brainz turned back to the body and relayed this piece for his unsure argument.

“ _ Well  _ Toriel, this is not how our  _ bodies  _ work-.”

He waved his arm towards the bodies and then got back down.

“- humans don’t just  **_explode_ ** for no  _ reason.  _ I mean  _ look _ they got fuckin. There’s  _ scorch marks  _ on their clothes from where… wait a minute…”

He slowed down big time and leaned himself right onto Andrew. 

“What is it, Brainz?”

“ _ Sssh-  _ shut up for a sec.”

A hand waved her down to do the same. Brainz started murmuring to himself as he picked and pulled at the soldier’s reddened uniform. 

“... big holes right through him…  _ mmurh,  _ there’s nothin penetration on the out _ side _ the. Armors  _ intact, _ but these’re.”

All Toriel could see peering behind him were the group of holes that could only be seen on the inside of the body armor. What did that mean? 

“Oh my god…” 

Brainz came to a conclusion maybe? 

“Y’gotta be fuck’n kiddin me…”

Toriel was still respecting the silence he asked of her even if the curiosity was becoming unbearable. It was fine though, Brainz stood back up and hobbled back around to face her with a shocked expression on his face. He moistened his lips and then said.

“They had fuck’n  _ charges  _ in their vests… y’know what this  _ means,  _ Toriel?...

…

**That cocksucker stole my work!!!”**

  
  
  
  
  



	29. 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starting a project with your child is a great way to bond!  
> No matter how easy, challenging, short, or time consuming they are: you can have lots of fun!  
> And you will both have something to hold near and dear to your hearts when it is all done.

“Aight, you  _ see _ what I’m tellin you now?” 

This rapid question was asked no less than three times following explanations of the same quantity. When Toriel didn’t give him the response he wanted, Brainz would repeat himself once more. He was a mad teacher in a rush to finish a lesson before a second hand on a clock could outrun him for recess. 

“Th-the  _ vest  _ it’s outfitted with ah-tt-t- a receiver, set on a super low frequency that waits for a signal from a-a- a  _ transmitter  _ from reallyreallyreally far away. The receiver is connected- it  _ was  _ connected it was connected to the charges. Small,  _ real small-.” _

He always put up his hand and held his fingers really close here, in a moment he would hold his hands together just to spread them out violently into the air.

“- they wait. F-for the  _ signal!  _ And when it comes-  **_*boom!*_ ** they’re fuck’n  _ dead!  _ They’re dead, Toriel. Killed by the very thing that’s supposed to save them. Literal  _ opposite  _ of what armor is s’posed to do. Y’get what I  _ mean now??”  _

_ Kind of?  _ It wasn’t like he was doing a poor job explaining it, more that he was speaking so fast Toriel couldn’t discern when his words ended or started. She was ready for the question though, making sure he wouldn’t go for a fifth run of his words.

“And… you were the one who invented these?”

Brainz shuddered. He was so quick to refute her that his hands frantically waved overlapping each other before he even finished turning to face her. 

“ _ No!  _ No-no no-no no-no- _ nnooh!  _ Well, I mean-  _ yes,  _ kind of-  _ No,  _ not like this! I-.”

His train of thought crashed into the station, he mourned for it with a frustrated growl before going for a complete do-over. 

“Ok-ok  _ look. I  _ was the one who came up with these; the work, the wiring diagram, the actual  _ work _ \- b-but I never made this to go on  _ people!  _ No, this was meant as a- a  _ failsafe  _ for all the stuff I used to sell. See, we would hide it inside of like a- a box of ammo or something else and then: say like someone came and  _ stole  _ stuff  _ or  _ or or we find out after selling guns to them that they aren’t the people we  _ want  _ guns in their hands. We-we-w I.  _ Detonate  _ the IED and it makes all the ammo or whatever burn up and now it’s useless, can’t be used to hurt  _ anyone.” _

He had to roll his eyes and grunt uncomfortably after saying that.

“ **_Unless_ ** the rare chance they’re right next to everything when I’d set it  _ off,  _ or it sets someone’s house on  _ fire  _ or-or: iii-it was just too  _ risky,  _ ok? I didn’t wanna  _ kill anyone  _ so it never saw use, it was a stupid idea anyway.”

The mention of harming someone with this still bothered him to his core. As much as he hid it, Brainz hated taking lives. Being so angry and miserable all the time made it easier for him to bear all of it. 

“And  _ now…” _ _   
_ All he needed to do was point to the results, still in the process of fully realizing what had happened.

“He’s made a failsafe for  _ people…” _

Toriel felt the burning eye make her out in its peripheral vision while Brainz kept himself pointed to the bloody mess. He muttered calmly to her.

“How many of them. Did you see wearing these fancy vests?... Toriel?” 

“I… I don’t know. They all looked so similar… maybe everybody?”

“So that means-.”

His voice lowered to a somber croak that rattled the back of his throat.

“- _ ohh gaawwd…” _

When he turned towards her again, that face he made made her think of Byran: forever tense and scared with a twitch in his eyes. 

“He’s got everyone under a  _ killswitch.  _ His entire fucking company, he’s got them all by their  _ necks  _ and they don’t even  _ know.  _ The moment they question an order, turn against him… and he doesn’t have to worry about them anymore. Jesus  _ Christ…”  _

To think they only had to worry about such trivial things as the  _ genocide  _ they were a part of, or the apocalyptic eruption of stirring mountain.  _ Now  _ there was the sickening horror of knowing that these once ‘faceless’ soldiers of murder could be just as hapless and in the dark as all the scared monsters. This was all just the work of a  _ conman…  _ Pailurn convinced a hundred men and women to do his bidding by exploiting their sense of altruism for their people and he was easily prepared in case anybody opened their eyes. Toriel saw something that nobody else had before from this.

“If he enacted this in the presence of a monster, it would be taken as an  _ attack.  _ This war solely of his own creation would be attributed to  _ monsters…  _ He’s a ‘hero’ to humanity no matter what atrocities he performs, he will always be  _ justified. _ ”

She felt bleak, she felt  _ strange:  _ something sitting inside of her floated up to the surface.

“ **_We’re always going to be the bad guys no matter what we do, Brainz.”_ **

It was like he spoke through her, Brainz would have said the same thing himself if she didn’t beat him to it. Toriel knew this because Brainz gave her the most empathetic of nods. He left any and all of his spite behind and  _ completely agreed with her…  _ **_THAT wasn’t supposed to happen._ ** It made this moment all the more harrowing for her just because  _ now  _ that overwhelming sense of creeping  **_doom_ ** was  _ inevitable  _ if not  _ existential.  _ Toriel hadn’t a clue on how both of them could survive this together  _ before  _ having to consider this.  _ So much stress…  _ and it was only going to worsen.

Brainz started prodding at his head, poking at a budding thought.

“Hold up a sec-  _ you’re right,  _ Toriel. You are  _ completely right but  _ how- _ how  _ did he know when to kill  _ these guys?”  _

It didn’t come to mind fast enough, Toriel jumped from startle when Brainz did so first, landing on his feet with a frantic point to the bodies and an unnerving shout.

“He’s LISTENING!” 

Toriel’s fright and confusion got to her mouth before her thoughts.

“ _ What?!”  _

Brainz only doubled down on his unrest, now instilling it with rage and spastic body movements.

“He’s been fucking  **_listening_ ** to us, Toriel! This whole fucking TIME!”

Without any premeditation Brainz dropped down and practically tackled Jake’s body. All the apprehension of dirtying himself was forgotten as he kneeled into the pool of blood while getting more of it smudged onto his hands. Brainz madly clawed for the radio clipped the murder vest’s shoulder strap, making further agitated and panicked noises with each failed brute force attempt. His final attempt saw him falling backwards and hitting his head against the table when he lost his grip on the blood smeared thing so tethered to the vest by its cable. Toriel had the time to do no more than exclaim when Brainz hit his head. He leapt up to his feet though and produced the Beretta in his outstretched arm, his thumb engaged the tiny hammer in the back of it. 

Toriel could not stop him from firing that thing a total of three times: one round firmly into each of the soldiers’ radios. It was deafening.

“ _ What the hell are you doing?!”  _

She yelled when the impulsive cowering from the sudden blasts from the weapon ceased. Brainz whipped his head dead center on her with his eyes fully open. He shouted at the top of his lungs.

“ **_THEY’RE BUGGING US!”_ **

The gun was pointed at the largest radio sitting atop the table, four additional shots were hastily put through it as it spat out sparks and bits of destroyed circuitry. It was so  _ loud  _ and unexpected that it was  _ terrifying. _ Toriel had no will in her claws grabbing her ears to muffle any more gunshots, it was just instinct at that point. 

Brainz was on a roll. He pressed his arms together and bulldozed the damaged equipment off the side of the table, it made its own kind of loud cacophony as it hit the floor. He wasn’t any happier from what he did though, Brainz danced around the room with his breaths becoming as loud as they were fast.

“Fuck!  **_Fuck!”_ **

He spent only a few more seconds panicking before he launched into his next course of action; scurrying to the stairs and leaping down them. Just like that, Brainz was running away and leaving Toriel behind in her own discombobulation. 

Of course she went after him, her thoughts screamed in fear and stark disapproval for letting him get away. Her mouth uttered a plaintive wail as she stumbled and failed to catch up.

“ _ WAIT, PLEASE! DON’T LEAVE ME!”  _

No response from him but the sound of the doors slamming open to make her heart sink all the way down. After everything he would just  _ abandon her  _ like this? Leave her to die while he ran into certain death? Her heart would have broken right here again if it wasn’t still in pieces. Honestly if Toriel lost Brainz now, she would simply fall down and be more no more in this world. She figured she deserved it anyway…  **_well there was no need to even get into that because Brainz came right back._ **

He almost collided right with the blubbering monster, his boots skidded as he came to an abrupt halt right in front of her. While Brainz didn’t hit her he made sure the pair of assault rifles he was holding did. He shoved the cold metal into Toriel.

“Take these, quick.”

She was still a little too occupied with the emotional lurching and perhaps being repulsed by the weapons that she did little more than blather some kind of hysterical sound. Brainz grew further restless and jostled the weapons.

“The fuck are you bitchin about?- _ Let’s  _ **_GO!_ ** Fuckin  _ take’em  _ and go  _ back!  _ I’ll be right  _ behind you-  _ I gotta get the  **_rest-_ ** can’t hold anymore,  _ c’mon!”  _

He said that he wasn’t running away… that changed everything. So now the only thought that Toriel would go with would be the one to do what Brainz said and keep him happy.

“Uh-O- _ Okay!”  _

So she grabbed the terrible things by their long, cold necks and did what he wanted. This seemed easy enough as she ran back down the tunnel. The only real difficulty in this would be overpowering and ignoring the  _ feelings  _ these things gave her. They felt just horrible to hold, they were cold and damp because Brainz grabbed them with his bloodied hands and Toriel could feel it staining her claws. She could feel the evil from the weapons beginning to stain her SOUL as they shared with her  _ how much death they inflicted,  _ **_so GOOD…_ ** Cold and lifeless, creeping up her arms and spreading to every inch the longer they  _ touched  _ her.  **_M16a4, semi and burst at a rate of eight hundred rounds per minute: 2.6 Magnification ACOG optics and ambidextrous charging handle with brass deflector for lefties… All cracking the power of 5.56x45 NATO ammunition, such POWER and PRECISION-”_ **

“No… I won’t- I  _ won't-  _ **_NO!”_ **

She was back in her home screaming and shaking the weapons in her claws as they tried to penetrate her SOUL with their lead secrets. She felt trapped by them, held hostage by things she  _ held-  _ Brainz told her to bring the weapons back but not what to do  _ next.  _ He didn’t tell her she could put them  _ down  _ and she  _ really  _ didn’t want to upset him anymore. She didn’t know what was going  _ on,  _ she didn’t know what to  _ do.  _ **_Somebody PLEASE tell her what to DO!_ **

“Lay those on the table.” 

The gruff voice coming up her stairs released the terrible grip the metal demons had on her, Brainz further helped her by shoving more small obstructions away on the wooden surface. 

“ _ Oh thank you.” _

Toriel exhaled with absolute relief, letting the rifles hit the table and backing away from them to frantically rub her claws together in a counterproductive attempt to clean them while she looked to Brainz for… well an explanation would be too demanding and he would probably give her one when he was ready- She looked at him anxiously to see what he wanted to do next or more prominently what he wanted  _ her  _ to do next. 

Brainz was carrying his own load of malice: one identical assault rifle and the revolver he came here with… it was  _ fine-  _ he had no intention of using it on  _ her  _ right now, he wasn’t  _ going  _ to. It was  **_fine._ ** Maybe she should have told him the truth about that gun right now; how it didn’t  _ “work”  _ like he thought it would? Or how she felt certain it  _ wouldn’t  _ work? No no. It wasn’t appropriate right now.

Brainz laid his weapons down next to the others and wiped his hands on his already blood and grime soaked pants. He then took a look at everything with the same jitters and shudders that Toriel was experiencing. Brainz tried to slow himself down with a nice long breath in. Unfortunately his lungs didn’t care for that and he coughed everything on the way out… It was just more discomfort for Toriel to see him like this: being that she now had pertinent knowledge on things like  **_lung cancer_ ** and  **COPD** for some reason. Those painful looking,  _ phlegmy, HACKY,  _ coughs made her cringe. But alas, Brainz seemed calmer after they stopped, this sudden episode was through the climax and getting less frantic. He cleared his throat and slapped both of his hands against the table, he looked right to Toriel with a straight face. 

“ _ Okay. So-  _ uhm-.”

Actually he needed to look around and make a couple of  **_*tch!*_ ** sounds with his mouth before he could really speak. He came back to her and tried again, starting with a grunt.

“- Looks like you’re getting your wish after all.”

“I’m sorry? What do you mean?”

“ _ Leaving.  _ W-we ain’t doin that now.  _ Can’t.  _ We can’t.”

He jittered his head to and fro at the end. 

She was going to hide the slightly ‘good’ feeling that ran through her and look to him with disappointment-  _ not AT him, never,  _ but instead with sadness for him. 

“W-why not? What’s the matter?” 

Apparently Toriel should not have asked this and should have known what was the matter. Brainz scoffed a little and retorted quickly and irritatedly. 

“ _ ‘What’s the matter?’  _ T-Toriel, they’re. They  _ bugged  _ us, he bugged all of his minions. He heard  _ everything  _ we said, there could be more in all these boxes, I-I don’t even know but- he  _ heard  _ us, Toriel. He knows that we’re  _ here _ , he knows anything we’re going to  _ try.” _

He paced a couple of steps and whipped his open hand towards the stairs.

“They could be already  _ on their way  _ here to put us down, they could be fuck’n  _ waiting for us  _ to leave, pack an ambush as soon as we cross that shitty bridge out there.” 

The hands were back flat on the table, propping himself up against his slouch. Brainz exhaled the last of his nervous energy.

“We go out there. And it’s suicide, simple as that.”

Something so inappropriately timed and ironic popped into his head, it made him grin out of spite for how tragic it was.

“And to think you thought I’d be fucked before goin out there- well  _ fuck.  _ Us.”

…

Well… she finally got what she wanted for about twenty years. Her child wished to stay home with her, wonderful… Of course it was mainly due to raw survival and not because of any attachment to the old monster, but why scrutinize that? Even if these circumstances were dire to the  _ nth  _ degree and Toriel was trying to ignore the mounting thought that this was all going to be in vain  _ anyway;  _ she would instead confirm the sliver of reality she always craved.

“So you are going to  _ stay with me?” _

Brainz turned to her and he said “Yes” and the raging storm inside grew just a little calmer. The black clouds of doom and gloom parted ever so slightly to allow this one sliver of hope to fall down to her. It wasn’t much but the faint light it gave off was just enough for her to see her way again, to not be completely lost anymore. Her instincts came back to cradle her thoughts and they told her that she was going to take care of this child now. Toriel was going to be there for him and answer his needs… make this place feel like ‘home’ for him maybe.  **She had the chance.**

…

Of course what Brainz  _ actually  _ said was more along the lines of frustratedly snapping at her for asking such a redundant question. Toriel was too busy feeling more like a ‘parent again’ to notice Brainz excessively shrugging at her. She came back to him when he suddenly threw off that filthy cloak and let the purple jacket show itself off in full, Toriel could see the backsides of the weapons burrowed into its pockets. Brainz snapped his finger and shook his head to her.

“We ain’t just gonna be staying and waiting to _die._ _Ohhhh no_ I ain’t goin down that _fuck’n_ ** _easy._** That fucking rat wants to kill me? He’s gonna have’ta do _a lot_ better than sicking his brainwashed tin soldiers afta’ me.”

Brainz grabbed one of the assault rifles, the one he smeared the least blood on which would become his favorite. He started messing with the stock and twitched a little grin after he partially pulled back the charging handle and saw the bullet waiting in the chamber. 

“They come after us? They’re gonna get a fucking  _ fight.” _

The chamber closed up with a little  **_*shuhk!*._ ** Brainz cracked the stiffness in his neck on both sides and extended one finger to Toriel.

“We got work to do.”

* * *

  
  


“ _ C’mon  _ let’s go let’s go! Get it right flat,  _ right there!  _ Perfect! Now get the last one!” 

Brainz followed closely behind Toriel as she pushed her own dresser down the basement tunnel. She would do all of the physical work (Which wasn’t really difficult) while Brainz shouted commands and yelled at her encouragingly with his biggest and newest gun shouldered and pointed towards the increasingly obstructed doors. 

“That’s it,  _ yeah!  _ You got it!” 

When the dresser joined the rest of the furniture comprising the barricade, Brainz gave Toriel a thumbs up and motioned her to come back to the house with him. 

“You’re fuckin  _ strong  _ you know that? I mean I shoulda figured cuz you’re so  _ big  _ but  _ damn!” _

She took the compliment at face value and nervously tried to smile for a second?

“ _ Thank you?..  _ Uhm, Brainz? I do not want to bother you but-  _ why  _ have we done this again?” 

He showed no irritation in his response as they approached the stairs.

“ _ Time.  _ It’ll buy us some more time to set up. Those doors are already a serious obstacle but they won't keep em out  _ forever.  _ Whatever they  _ do  _ though, s’gonna be a lot harder to get through that bottleneck with all that  _ shit in the way!”  _

It was best that she just nod and agree with him for most of the stuff he was saying.

“ _ Okay.”  _

They returned upstairs to a much different home than before. Everything not attached or  _ “not anymore attached”  _ to the walls and floor had been brought into the foyer and adjacent rooms to reinforce them. Hundreds of books tumbled to the floor as bookshelves were moved and even  _ dismantled  _ for boards to be used for the barricades around the stairwell. Toriel’s bedroom was emptied first of everything but her mattress and bedding… (Chairiel was not spared). When Brainz went for the guest room, Toriel objected at first because of  _ sentimental value  _ or something like that but she quickly sided with Brainz seeing how determined he was. He was  _ giddy  _ with his work, moving fast and talking even faster. 

Anything that was too big to fit through the door was brought down to size by the butt of his gun as Brainz bashed drawers, bed frames, and wooden legs apart just to nail them back together in the other room. He had no interest in any of the cool toys or insignificant things like the dusty picture frames. 

The “ **ROOM UNDER RENOVATIONS”** only stopped him for as long as it took him to jiggle the locked doorknob and inquire with Toriel. 

“ _ What’s this?” _

She couldn’t even open her mouth to answer him or say that she could get the key. Brainz felled the lock on the door with one powerful kick. This would be upsetting under normal circumstances but Toriel wouldn’t blame him for being excited…  _ That  _ and all of the doors would be the next things to be dismantled anyway. 

“For goodness sakes…”

Was all she really said for Brainz to ignore and skim the wall for a lightswitch. When he found what he was looking for… He was expectedly disappointed by-

“It’s a bathroom, Brainz. I was about to tell you there probably won't be anything of use in here.”

“ _ Oh… _ well.” 

Just her bathroom: a sink and mirror, a bathtub and wash basin (Which was stained pink from the blood Toriel laundered from Brainz’s clothes), and a rather large and uneven hole in the floor: the reason the room was closed off in the first place which caught Brainz’s attention for a quick digression.

“What’s with this?” 

Toriel opened her mouth to speak again and Brainz interrupted again.

“Where’s your  _ toilet?” _

She waited a moment for him to be done before attempting to speak. 

“That is the reason this room is under renovation.”

Toriel said in an unamused tone while gesturing to the basic toolbox she left by said hole.

Brainz had two issues with this.

“Awh  _ what?  _ You had  _ tools _ this whole time? That woulda made this a little  _ easier  _ y’know!” 

“Sorry, it did not cross my mind.”

He was further disappointed now but it would lessen up when he approached and got a good look at the tools. There was an assortment of tiny to small screwdrivers and these strange little “L” shaped hexagonal bars-

“They’re called  _ ‘Allen Wrenches’.” _

Toriel grunted.

-and other various scavenged things that Brainz ultimately scrunched his face at. Toriel had this to say in her defense.

“Unfortunately I have not yet learned the basics of  _ plumbing  _ nor have I acquired the appropriate tools for doing so.”

Brainz squinted at her even more.

“Then… where do you go to the  _ bathroom?  _ Do you do it down the  _ sink? _ ”

“ **_No.”_ **

“Ay, I wasn’t freaking judging, I was just-.”

Toriel had to double down her assertiveness. 

“I mean  _ no,  _ Brainz. Monsters do not need to  _ ‘use the bathroom’  _ as you would say it.”

  
He did not believe her, judging by that incredulous scoff.

“ _ H’what?...  _ No way.”

“Mmn- _ mmm…  _ It’s true, Brainz. We are not composed of the same ‘biological’ matter that humans are. Our bodies are representations of our SOULs made of dust and magic, nothing more. Any food we consume is instantly converted to energy and magic, everything is utilized. We do not need to ‘expunge’ what our bodies cannot use.”

At least now he was  _ trying  _ to believe her.

“ _ Whaaaat.  _ The fuck? You must be  _ joking…  _ Here I thought you guys just-.”

“Went down the pits, I know.”

She got back at him this time and smiled smugly.

Brainz scratched his head.

“How does that  _ even… _ ?”

He would hold up his free hand to arrest that thought and end the topic while quite decisively shaking his head to the floor.

“Don’t wanna know actually.  _ We’re off topic- just…” _

He actually wasn’t done, he had to ask Toriel one more thing for curiosity’s sake. 

“ _ Okokok!  _ One more thing actually. Then-th-then, where would all the-the  _ kids  _ go? Your  _ human  _ ‘children’? How did that work?”

She stopped smiling. Toriel would slowly direct his attention to the chamber pot in the corner of the room. It was the best she could do but she herself was not satisfied with it. The toilet project was really a bud of wishful thinking for her: perhaps having better accommodations would have enticed one of her children to stay with her for good… She was a hopeful fool for thinking she could pull it off and for thinking it would keep her from being alone for the rest of her life. 

Brainz only had a single utterance for his thoughts on this.

“Eww.” 

They wallowed in the awkward silence for a bit before Brainz pointed his rifle up and started back for the hallway. 

“ _ Aight,  _ let’s go. We wasted enough time. We’re comin back for the door in a minute though.” 

The last thing they went for would be the dining room table. Its intended purpose did not outweigh the potential application for cover overlooking the stairs. Toriel and Brainz were just going to have to organize everything on the floor… Her ‘messy alarm’ had burned out already so it was fine. 

With the table in place, Brainz clapped his hands together (Even though Toriel was the one who moved it) and sighed sharply. 

“Well that’s some  _ fine  _ work, now we’re only  _ entirely  _ fucked instead of  _ unequivocally  _ fucked. Now that that matter is out of the  _ way…”  _

Brainz held out the last word and turned himself around towards the only undisturbed things left in the living room.

“Ya think we can  **_finally_ ** take a look in these fucking  _ crates  _ like I asked to do like a thousand  _ times?  _ Cuz y’know, now that we’re not going anywhere anytime soon, we could probably  _ really  _ use everything inside?  _ Y’know? Toriel?” _

He tried to grab her attention at the end because of the lack of response, he wouldn’t get one from her though because of something more harrowing. Clearing up the entire living room of all the furniture left nothing but piles of orphaned books and the three dead bodies as the centerpiece. With nothing to obstruct her sight from them, Toriel took one look at the soldiers when she was done with her task and froze up again… She really didn’t hear or notice Brainz at all until his latest impatient whine and his intentional shoulder butting with her as he stormed past her. 

“ _ Alright,  _ I’m fuck’n  _ moving em  _ already! Christ, we got more important things to  _ do,  _ **_god!”_ **

Brainz’s assault rifle was slipped onto his back and arrested to him by straps over and under his shoulders. He dipped his knees back in the cold pool of blood and struggled to lift up Steven’s body by its shoulders all the while making lots of exaggerated grunts of effort. Brainz managed to drag Steven for a couple of feet at the most before he lost his grip and Steven hit the floor with a hard  ***thud!*.** The Private’s helmet separated from his head and rolled away, revealing that young man’s face. Toriel started to cry again, Brainz was halfway through swearing to himself.

“God- _ fuckn- _ damnit,  _ fuck’n piece of _ -.”

He went to bend down to try again but he stopped and ultimately accosted the monster failing to keep herself together.

“Wait a minute. Why am  _ I  _ doing this?  _ You’re  _ the strong one here! I can barely lift this fucker and you could probably carry all three of them over your shoulder! Why don’t  _ you  _ do this?” 

It was never a matter of strength nor anything similar of physical nature. The deed itself of carrying a body for burial was something Toriel had  _ experience  _ with. She wished she would never ever have to do something like it again,  _ nor  _ did she want to force  _ Brainz  _ to do it, but… He saw three lifeless human bodies soaking in their own blood and nothing more. Toriel saw something more than that, that turned the overwhelming sadness into deep apprehension.  **Their SOULS were still intact, perfectly emerged from their defunct bodies… slowly starving and dying out but not quite gone.**

Toriel only had to let the wail of agonized screams and the roar of gunfire haunt her without resistance to be very afraid of what she saw. Just looking at them made her feel the  **_fire_ ** in her limbs, the letters on the backs of her claws throbbed. 

  
  


**Never again.**

“No… I. Can’t. I’m  **_sorry._ ** I’m so sorry..” 

She regressed back to sniffling and the sounds of failed restraints to sobbing for all the people she hurt. Brainz wasn’t going to understand, it wasn’t his fault though… He tilted his head at her and squinted.

“...  _ Ohhh  _ yeah. The  _ souls, _ you’re right. Good catch.”

“W-wh… wha?...”

Brainz got right back to lifting and dragging the lifeless soldier.

“You don’t want to absorb them by accident again, I get it.”

Oh  _ boy  _ did she want to ask him  **_“HOW?”_ ** in the strongest way she could exercise bewilderment. When she saw Steven’s bloody face and half opened eyes as he was dragged away… Toriel completely lost it. 

Brainz rolled his eyes as he backed out the front door.

“ _ Uuuurgh!  _ You  _ cry  _ too much!  _ I  _ should be the one crying that I gotta  _ do  _ this shit,  _ sheesh!”  _

Toriel would not be able to collect herself until Brainz took the last of the poor boys away, they left a trail of red smears behind them. She didn’t dare try to look out her window to see where Brainz dropped them, she wouldn’t be able to take it so soon. 

Brainz walked back in soon, lamenting his aching back. 

“ _ There.  _ I did what you asked, they’re not gonna stink up your house now.”

Toriel didn’t have the will to try speaking without sobbing yet… Brainz though, he sneered at her at first but then he relaxed and his voice became so soft.

“Hey. Are you alright?”

She looked up from her damp claws to see… a face of concern studded with green eyes.

Then there was a quake and everything went dark. 

  
  


“ _ Well. *Fuck*.”  _

  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  



	30. 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Accidents happen.  
> It's important to realize that no matter what happens, you will always be there for them.  
> Always.

The fire would be the only thing that opposed the darkness. Its gentle percussion was all that filled the silence. Every surface gazing upon the fireplace was painted by the primitive orange glow and only two things dared to steal the light from the walls and replace it with their shadows. Two things that sat on the floor to bask in the warmth aside piles of scattered books in a room that felt much bigger and emptier.

Brainz sat closest to the fire with his arms keeping his knees tucked against his chest, he stared into the blossoming flames as if they beckoned for him. Toriel sat farther away, she would not rely on the warmth as much as the human did and she would not threaten him by moving any closer. The lights had been gone for ten minutes and they weren’t going to come back, somehow both of them knew this. They were not sitting here in wait for something to happen but instead for one another to come up with a reason to get up. 

Toriel could hear a sigh from Brainz before he unfolded himself and sat back.

“Knew this was gonna happen, y’know.” 

He turned himself enough to look into her glimmering eyes.

“The lights, hm? I knew they were gonna go off.” 

Brainz gave her a very short nod and finished it with an equally brief shrug

“Happened before, y’know?” 

“ _ Hmn.” _

That was her, making a confirming noise. She was still preoccupied with all the calm.

  
  


“At least we’re not  _ completely  _ blind like I was… so there’s  _ that.” _

He gestured to the emanating warmth and then it was back to the motionless silence… at least until Toriel heard something else coming from Brainz. It sounded like he was scraping something tiny, doing it quicker with every repetition. Toriel started crawling forward to investigate. 

“ _ C’mon. C’mon already…” _

A low mutter came from him as his arm shook and kept up the noise. 

“What are you doing?”   
The question hit Brainz as a surprise. He flinched and spun around with a cigarette in his mouth, staring at Toriel like a deer caught in headlights. 

She would ask him the same thing again, with more urgency now.

“What are you  _ doing?”  _

Toriel would get to make out a slightly crumpled box and tarnished metal lighter in Brainz’s grip to coincide with his response. He had that hesitation and unsureness in his voice, like he was someone just caught red handed. 

“I-eyyyuh-ya-ye-. I found these in one of their pockets while I was uh- draggin em out.”

He shook the pack, it rattled with its partial capacity. Toriel felt her insides shriveling up from this though.

“ _ Brainz…”  _

That was all she said, Brainz was already defensive from what he assumed she would think.

“Yeah I  _ know-  _ this is  **_bad_ ** but he ain’t needin them no more and uh- I don’t think I’ve ever needed one more badly in my entire fucking life. So. I don’t fuck’n  _ care  _ what you think. Now c’mon you little fucker,  _ rrgh!”  _

That last sentence wasn’t for Toriel but for the choking lighter as spark after spark failed to ignite that vice of his. 

“Brainz.”

She said it again, it made him stop what he was doing at the height of his frustration with a snap.

“ _...What?!”  _

“Give me one of those, please.” 

“Wait  **_what?”_ **

Without further warning Toriel crawled another step towards Brainz and pinched the end of his cigarette. She gave her claw tips a little heat and the cigarette lit up. Toriel then took the liberty of sliding another from the pack and sharing the flame from Brainz’s with her own. Brainz really didn’t move, perhaps the thought of Toriel bumming a cigarette like this stalled him. Nevertheless she sat back and beat Brainz to the first drag but sure took her time with it. It was like a piece of her soul came out with the toxic smoke she pushed from her nostrils with the slowest exhale. She closed her eyes and leaned back ever so more as the drug coated her insides, dulling all the blows and covering the wounds. 

“Since when do  _ you  _ smoke? The fuck?”

A very intrigued man asked her shortly after, not before he took a couple of nervous puffs and shivered from them.

Toriel blew out another cloud before looking at Brainz.

“I  _ don’t.” _

A tired and fed up smile took half of her face, she shook her head at the thing so perfectly squeezed between her digits.

“This is the first time I have ever touched one of these terrible things, let alone-.”

Another drag, it felt like she was going to suffocate if she didn’t suck on this thing every five seconds. She finished her sentence whispering it out. Everything else coming out of her would be a low drone. 

“-  _ partaking in them…  _ Yet I feel like I have done this my whole life.”

Brainz ran with that as a hint.

“Oooh, I see.”

He started chipping at the disintegrating part of his cigarette but he strangely halted himself for her.

“Uhhm, we should probably get something to use like an ashtray or something.”

“It’s alright, I don’t care anymore.” 

To demonstrate that, she broke off a piece of her own cigarette and let it hit the floor. Between all the blood and the boot prints and the fact everyone was going to die; Toriel was not concerned with keeping a tidy home anymore. Honestly the only immediate concern she had would be asking for another cancer stick. 

“I’m kind of surprised you aren’t up in arms about how bad these are for me or how I’m gonna get cancer or something.”

Oh she really  _ wanted  _ to be. This was the only reality in the existence of existence itself that Toriel did not slap that thing from Brainz’s mouth the second she saw it. The truth she instantly accepted the moment she smelled the tobacco was that she and Brainz needed these right now. These things didn’t just make you feel better in the short term: they were vouchers for bits of your life for a respite from the hell that swallowed you up.

“These things  _ are _ terrible and I do not think you can comprehend how much I want you to stop this.  _ But.  _ There are more pressing issues right now.”

Brainz was finished with his stub, he chucked it into the fire and coughed. 

“Psh- yeah, more things are gonna kill us before cancer does.” 

He grabbed his rifle off the ground and stood up while brushing himself off.

“Whoof- I feel a bit better now, kill myself slowly to me from doing it faster. Y’know?”

“Please don’t mention things like that.”

Toriel tried to get up too but she felt a very strange sensation in her head, like it weighed nothing. Her balance had trouble finding itself, she got up with an uncomfortable grunt. 

“Uulgh..” 

Good thing Brainz didn’t notice, he had enough to worry about. He was instead… staring down the dark corridor motionless. His pose was tense though, like he was about to ready his weapon. 

“Brainz? What’s the matter?”

Her voice seemed to snap him out of it, Toriel saw him jitter his head and ease up.

“Erh, nothin. I thought I saw something- it’s fine though.”

The darkness had that effect on people, the distorted shadows produced by the dancing flames had a habit of playing with nervous minds. Brainz and Toriel would be funhouses for stuff like this… Was it really ‘nothing’? He could’ve been lying, being that he reached into his bag and brought out a flashlight to check. Toriel had even more doubts for his assurance when he fumbled with his arms full and had to let his rifle hang by its straps; he couldn’t hold it and the flashlight at the same time and had to settle for one of his smaller guns. 

He didn’t move from his spot but he leaned to get the light into the doorless rooms, they felt strangely sinister now. Brainz even shined the light out the window, holding it there and moving his head all around before he clicked the light off and shrugged to Toriel.

“Yeah, nothing.”

She was going to make her doubts known to him, but he prevented that by changing the subject again.

“Gotta say I really don’t like leaving the front open like this. Are you  _ sure.  _ Like absolutely positively  _ sure  _ nobody is going to come from here?”

“ _ Yes.  _ All of the soldiers have come through here already… The only people who could come from the rest of the Ruins would be the monsters who lived there.”

She frowned grimly and shook her head.

“But I do not think that will happen.” 

Brainz sighed and nodded sordidly. 

“Got it…” 

The flashlight came back on and this time Brainz perched it on his shoulder and tilted his head to keep it in place. Both of his hands became occupied trying to remove the lid on one of the coveted crates of  **US MILITARY** property.

Toriel could have asked him what he was doing, but even she knew that would be redundant. Brainz even tested her by partially turning himself to accost her.

“You helpin me or  _ not?” _

She was already on her way to do just that and even found a way to ask the same question without getting yelled at.

“So what exactly are we doing now?” 

Brainz got the last latch undone with Toriel’s help but the lid was stuck, the way he had to press on his shoulder with the flashlight made it difficult for him to use both of his arms too. He ended up dropping his light by accident.

“Goddammit.” 

But before he could pick it up, Toriel intervened.

“Here, if I may.” 

In an instant, there was another source of warmth and light filled the foyer: Toriel manifested a smaller flame in her open palm. Brainz was not ready for her to do that and he reacted with surprise and stammering.

“It’s  _ alright!” _

She had to tell him.

“My flame is incapable of causing harm, it's fed by my own magic and intention and I have no intention of hurting you with it.” 

  
  


Brainz slowly rescinded his recoil as the panic subsided. He kept a skeptical face until the end when he cautiously reached his hand closer and closer to the flame: the heat never became uncomfortable or harmful even with his hand inside of the fire. This kind of control over fire magic was something that took  _ forever  _ to master: it was one of the few things Toriel could still pride herself for. 

“Huh.”

Brainz remarked, pulling his hand back. He sounded impressed actually, but he realized that and had to undermine it of course.

“Well- well don’t  _ hold it  _ near the freakin stuff, it might still go off! Sheesh!”

With Toriel’s light for two aiding them, Brainz was able to sigh with a more positive emotion. 

“Ahhhh look at  _ that.  _ Boxes of  _ ammo!  _ Perfect, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go back and loot the bodies for their magazines.”

He fought the disapproving look she gave him.

“Well we don’t  _ gotta  _ now! Here, help me move this one to the floor so we can get to the other two- it’s really heavy.”

* * *

  
  


The conclusion of a short period of time and effort saw the two of them sitting back in the living room. Two dining room chairs were returned to their original purpose while a couple of overturned supply crates and their lids became the new table. 

Toriel and Brainz were not seeing eye to eye. She frowned at him from across the ‘table’. 

“I know you are thinking in our best interests, but it is just not  _ right…” _

Brainz had his chair leaning back precariously, he let it fall back forward with a good  **_*thump!*._ **

“ ‘ _ Not right’?  _ Toriel, we  _ need  _ every advantage we can get! And uh- I got the ability to  _ make us  _ one and you’re turning your nose up to it.”

Brainz’s arms glided over all the things he brought to the table.

“We found  **_satchel charges,_ ** Toriel. We got a box with fucking  **_satchel charges_ ** in it. They are  _ literally meant  _ for blowing people up. We could do  _ so much worse  _ with them but all I wanna do is rig these up to some of my tripwires and put them outside.  _ Not only  _ will we have  _ less soldiers  _ to deal with but there will be  _ no way  _ we won't know they came.”

She had to frank with him: Toriel was honestly repulsed, not with Brainz but just what he was trying to push. 

“ _ Brainz.  _ This is  **_cruelty._ ** I am  _ not  _ trying to accuse you, you have been exposed to so much of it that your judgement has been shifted. I  _ know  _ you do not want to be cruel, you never meant to be.” 

He was pretty annoyed now, scoffing angrily and slapping his thigh. 

“ **_Uugh!_ ** They would  _ die  _ **_INSTANTLY._ ** Tell me  _ how  _ is that cruel in any.  _ Way? _ Actually,  _ what do you think  _ is gonna happen when they get through the door? Lemme give you a hint.”

Brainz lifted his rifle from the table and cycled its charging handle, he caught the unused bullet that flew out and pocketed it. 

“ _ Questions?”  _

No questions, only a desperate sounding gambit from her as she leaned forward urgently.

“What if we could  _ reason _ with them? They don’t  _ know  _ what they are truly doing, we could tell them the  _ truth!” _

Brainz held up his arm and sliced it down the air. He tied deep criticism and sarcasm to it.

“Oh,  **_brilliant!_ ** That’s a  _ great  _ idea! Yeah I’m gonna put years of loyalty and training behind and trust the fucking  _ monster  _ and the  **_super-terrorist!_ ** _ Hey!  _ While I’m at it, how about I completely ignore my orders and betray my country to  **_help_ ** them?”

He started clapping cynically.

“Great  _ fuck’n  _ idea, Toriel! Damn! I don’t see  _ any  _ faults with it!  **_OHH Wait!_ ** There’s just  _ one.  _ In the slim chance talking to them actually  _ DOES ANYTHING  _ besides getting up killed _ , _ their boss is gonna  **_BLOW THEM UP!”_ **

Brainz released the rest of the negativity with his breath and sat back again. He was now trying to de-escalate what he solely raised up… Probably because he saw the sadness forming on Toriel’s face and felt bad. 

“Look. I don’t want to kill anyone at all, but we really don’t have that option. They’re going to die when they come into contact with us regardless of what we do… Only thing I can think of doing is preventing  _ us  _ from going down with them…”   
  


Then he lowered his voice even more.

“Toriel, look at me.”   
  


She did just that and was greeted with a joyless man giving her his reality and nothing else. 

“You don’t want anything to happen to me to the point you don’t care about yourself. Well.  _ I.  _ Don’t want anything to happen to you.”

It’s like he could see those words hitting her right where she felt. Brainz quickly tried to dissipate the sentimental feelings by looking away and crossing his arms.

“I gave you my word we would both leave, and uh that doesn’t work if we both  _ die.”  _

It was alright though, she knew him too well now: there was no hiding what he meant. Toriel would keep it to herself for his sake. However, it didn’t mean she changed her mind about boobytrapping the entrance. Because when Brainz asked,

“So, can I set these up or not?”   
  


She said no. And like a child being denied that shiny thing they so desperately wanted, Brainz soured up his face and pouted. 

“Oh  _ come  _ oooooonn.” 

“I’m sorry.”

Toriel frowned. 

“But I just cannot allow this to happen. We do not need to stoop to his level, Brainz. You are better than this.”

That sour face turned into a critical squint. Brainz regurgitated what he heard with a cynical rehash. 

“  _ ‘Better than this?’  _ No. I’m actually  _ not.  _ We’ve established already, I’m an  _ asshole.  _ And newsflash, I’ve done this a  _ thousand  _ times in the past before so-...” 

Then something else came to his mind that changed his output entirely.

“Wait,  _ why am I even asking for your validation?  _ You’re not my  _ mother,  _ I’m putting this up whether you like it or  _ not.”  _

  
  
  


Five minutes later and forty steps down the tunnel, Toriel guided Brainz with her flame. Brainz had his bag with a different inventory inside… and a reluctant and disinterested grumble to his words.

“So we set up one of  _ these  _ outside the  _ door  _ and we cover it up with  _ snow  _ I guess or something. And then when someone  _ steps on it  _ it’ll just tighten around their legs and lift them up in the air. It’s  _ completely.  _ Non. Lethal.  _ ‘Yay’...”  _

She smiled at Brainz, as proud as she was of him.

“Thank you, sweetie.” 

Brainz grumbled some more at her.

“Don’t call me that.” 

When they arrived at the pile of furniture, Brainz cordially invited Toriel to unblock the door. When enough had been moved away, Brainz hushed his voice and motioned for her to do the same.

“Alright, kill your light for a second.” 

…

“Your  _ flame _ , put it  _ out.” _

“Oh, but we will not be able to see then.”

“I  _ know.  _ But we won't be able to  _ be  _ seen, just put it out.”

She obeyed and the small space went completely dark. Toriel could hear Brainz handling his weapon. He swallowed and whispered to her even quieter now.

“Ok, I’m gonna push the door open a crack.  _ Don’t  _ make a move,  _ don’t  _ make sound. Got it?”

“Understood.”

What followed were quick grunts of exertion, Toriel wouldn’t tell him but she had to covertly help him pull the door open. Even then, she could feel it ‘resisting’ her, it was like something else was pulling on it. Suddenly though, there was a  **_*crack!*_ ** and the very efforts she and Brainz made to  _ open  _ the door would be now trying to keep it from opening  _ further  _ as a jarring blast of frigid wind shot through the gap. With no warning that this was going to happen, all they could do was hold the door against the wind until the pressure evened out and the room’s temperature dropped greatly. When no more force could be felt on the door and his whispers could be heard again, Brainz was the first to ask.

“What the fuck was _ that _ ?” 

“I haven’t the slightest clue. Here, I’m going to make another flame-.”

“Nonononono. Don’t do that! Noyet not yet. Just-.”

He cut himself off, Toriel felt the door being pulled further in: it made an unpleasant sound as it scraped against the ground. It never did this before… When Brainz got it open enough for his wants, he hissed again. 

“Ok, you see anything?”

Toriel saw pitch blackness and a whole lot of it. She had a lovely little twinge remembering the last time she saw nothing but darkness through these doors. The bad memory brought on a quick feeling of panic, she couldn’t see Brainz… but no, it wasn’t like last time. He was right here with her, she could feel his presence, quite strongly the closer she was to him. Anyway… she couldn’t see anything.

“I can not.” 

“You don’t see any lights or anything? I think we’re good.”

“Shall I bring the flame back  _ now?” _

She would get shot down again.

“Nah nah, I got it. Hold up.” 

There was the sound of his bag hitting the floor and then its zipper going, a rustle or two here and then the small  ***click*** that brought back their sight… but only really where Brainz pointed the flashlight.  _ Her  _ light lit everything up  _ and  _ it radiated heat and comfort. Toriel almost protested, wanting to ask what that little battery torch had that she didn’t. She withheld any comments and let Brainz creep the inferior light through the door. Both of their jaws would come loose and hang open when they got a look at what was outside. 

First of all, they were immediately able to figure out why the door didn’t want to open so much: it had frozen over. There was a pile of icicles that had been dislodged from the door and shattered when they hit the ground… which was not so much snowy or muddy but frozen solid instead. 

“Oooh boy….” 

Brainz had some trouble forming what he wanted to say, he was more focused on taking everything in as he shined the flashlight around the rather hostile looking environment.

“Uuhhhh… Is it sup. _ Posed  _ to be like this?” 

Toriel was a little sluggish on getting back to him, she sounded just as lost as he was.

“Nn-no actually. I don’t-. This is the first time I have uhm. Seen this.”

While Brainz was just stunned about the landscape in general, Toriel was more confused as to why she wasn’t looking at a trail of mud and melted snow. This did not match up at all, it was the complete  _ opposite  _ of before, so what happened? What did  _ not  _ betraying Brainz have to do with completely inverting the effects of CORE failure? What did this  _ mean?  _ Better yet,  **what was going to happen now?** If this was altered,  _ anything else  _ could have followed.  _ Everything  _ Toriel could predict from her experience could have been chucked from the window now… There was that lightheaded feeling again.

“Ooh… I don’t feel very well.” 

“What was that?”   
Brainz looked away from the frozen wasteland to see Toriel holding her head and twitching. She put a stop to it just before he would get suspicious.

“Nothing. Let’s go back, away from this cold.”

Her request was denied by a wagging finger.

“No, still gonna set up the trap. It’ll only take me a minute.”

Brainz opened one side of the door all the way and did a terrible shiver that made him pull his coat shut tighter. Toriel was going to provide him with warmth whether he liked it or not now, she was about to focus for a stronger flame when Brainz butted back in with his rifle presented to her. 

“Cover me while I work.”

Somehow the more insulated of the two of them froze first. Toriel knew exactly what he wanted of her and how to do it but she was unable to carry it out. That thing with the trigger he was trying to hand her was literally one of her worst triggers now. Brainz did not understand and grew irritated.

“ _ C’mon.  _ Take it before the frostbite makes my hands get  _ stuck  _ to it already!”

Internal panic, external stalling. 

“For  _ fuck’s sakes,  _ TORIEL!” 

She was forced out of her own head by the gun being forcefully thrust into her arms. Those accused ‘acquired reflexes’ were the only reason she actually grabbed it. Now she  _ had  _ to hold onto it. Brainz just shook his head disapprovingly at her.

“Get your head in the freaking game.”   
  


He turned around and left her to it on that note, moving his bag outside and pulling out a coil of steel cable looted from the military. Brainz had no thought about the ungodly stress Toriel was put under, this was a no brainer for him. 

On top of resisting the urge to scream, Toriel had to watch not only Brainz but for anything that may be coming from down the terrifying looking path. If it were Brainz standing here, he’d have a lot more confidence in the task. Toriel though, she wasn’t sure what was scarier: whatever could be watching them right now? Or the gun resting in her trembling claws. No no, the  _ best  _ thing to be scared of was wondering what she would do  _ if  _ someone came. How  _ fun!  _ What if she would choke up and it would lead to Brainz getting hurt or  _ worse?  _ Or  **even worse,** what if it was a monster come seeking refuge from the genocide only to be  _ murdered  _ by the heinous instincts this thing wanted her to remember?

  
  


**Y̵̢̥͎̭̞̝̣͓̫̖̟̖̲̬͂͆̀̓̔̈́̔̉̑̇̐̿̋̀̄̓͆͠ơ̵̛̰̥̮̣̤̝̖̱͈͓͓͇̘̟̭̑͌̇̓͒̌̒̈́̽̆̅͋̀͘͜͠ụ̸̹̥̼͍͕̃̉̒͒̆̽̆̉̈̓̚̚̚͠ ̶̻̜̤̙̺̖̝̭̤͌̾̂̓̀̇͆̋̂͑̌̌̐̕k̷̹͓̟͕͖̫͕͉̤̬͉̈͜n̶̢̨͊͂̈́̈͝o̶̺̭͒̃͊͜ẅ̸͔̘͚͇̠̤̹̗̈̅̓͌̏̿͘ ̷̛̳̞̞̩͖̜̫̼̣̻͈̪́̅̃͋̂̓̑̿͋̉͗̄͝͝ÿ̷̢̲̻̞̺́͗̊̚o̶̢̢̘̤̘̭̮̫͚͉͓̖͕̤͕͊̊̆ù̴̯̟͕͚̙̱̙̻̌̚̚͜͝'̴̣̗̠̪̗͎̄͆̌̆̓̀̕͘͝͠ͅḽ̸̝͑̋̀͗̒̅͐̊͌͆̚͘̚l̶̨̙̙̯̗̬̲̘͚̣̿̔̈̄̈̆͛̕͜ ̸̧̨̨̻̲̩̮͇̪̘̩̝̠͖̠͆͗̽͊̄̆̽̽͌̐ͅę̸̧̘̩̳͕̥̯͔̬̩̈́̑͂̊͊̉̚͠ͅn̸̢̼̺͚͍͕̟̫̻̠̥̋̈͆̄͌̔͂͊̋̈́̽͝͝͝͝j̴̮͇̳͔̿̅̃́̐͆͂ȯ̷͔͖̦͇̪̔̋̈̀͌̈́̅̓̔͆̒̈́ẏ̵̹̔̄̊̚̚͠͝ ̴̖͉̫͔̥̬̮̱͈͚͚̩̥̬̮͐̍̈́̆i̸̡̡̞̖̻̳̯̥̘͋̈͂̍̈́͒̈̓̉̽͗̑̂̅͝t̴͎̫̜̮͈̮̜́͌̆͒̌̑̈́͂̋͒̍̾̕.̷̡͚͍͖̤̣̖͍̻͚̹̦͚̊̑̈͂̐͌̇̎́͝ ̵̘̙̐͊͋͛̍̄͛͋͒͘**

  
  
  


The gasp Toriel made was contagious. In an instant, Brainz was on his feet and readying his pistol.

“ _ What!  _ Where is it? What do you see?” 

He continued to rapid fire similar questions while the gun frantically searched for a target.

“ _ Talk to me,  _ Toriel.  _ What did you see?”  _

“I- It was nothing! I saw nothing. I am sorry for frightening you.”

At first he just didn’t believe her and took another look down the path, evening shining the flashlight down it. When Brainz was sure he didn’t have to be fearful for his life, he was mad at Toriel. He put his gun away with a nasty comment and a disapproving head shake. 

“Give you  _ one  _ fucking thing to do…”

He went back to work, not noticing the monster wilting a little bit behind him. After a little sniffle, Toriel miserably asked Brainz if he was ready to go back yet. He took it as her trying to rush him and snapped at her again.

“I’m almost fucking  _ done!  _ Woulda been faster if you didn’t  _ distract  _ me! And **stop** looking at  _ me!  _ Look down the fucking path! Christ…” 

This would have been the time for her to be quiet and cry internally but then Brainz had another complaint that overrode all this a minute later.

“Hoo, god it’s fucking  **_cold.”_ **

Brainz said this with a shivering sigh that Toriel could see clouding into the air. 

“Here, let me give you some warmth.” 

She started crouching down and nearing Brainz but was stopped by his shaking hand.

“ _ Nonono,  _ it’s fine- it’s  _ fine.  _ I almost got it. Here, you wanna be useful: pull down this branch for me… that’s it- ok  **stop.** Hold it there.”

Brainz started fastening one end of his trap to the branch.

“ _ Yeah that’s it-  _ nice and tight. How hard was this to pull down anyway? Was it stiff? I was kind of expecting it to be dead and snap off but  _ hey-  _ this may be the first thing that’s gone my way now. Ok, let it go?” 

Toriel did just that and the long branch did not return to its upright posture. A quick confirmation from Brainz told her that the trap was done. More importantly, an entitled hand gesture told Toriel,

“Here, gimme that back.”

Free from the burden of the weapon once more, Toriel wanted to make herself tell Brainz that she wouldn’t be able to handle another weapon. She just didn’t know  _ when  _ to tell him.

Brainz tilted his head for the Ruins.

“Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

He shouted as soon as Toriel tried to take a step though. After the momentary terror passed, Brainz would point vigilantly at the little loop of cable on the ground that blended actually quite nicely with the ice.

“ **_Stop!_ ** The cable. Don’t touch it, don’t step near it, don’t disturb it, don’t  _ nothin.  _ The second anything so much as touches it, the thing keeping this branch down will come loose-.”

His finger followed the cable up.

“- this’ll tighten around their foot and it’ll pull them up with the tree and there you go.  **_Stuck._ ** ” 

“You did a good job.”   
  


He dismissed the compliment.

“Yeah mhm, sure sure. Yeah honestly this would work much better if I put like a  _ shotgun  _ trap in the bush right here or something because uhh-  _ errr…  _ What the?”

Brainz’s finger and thoughts stalled at the bush, something about it concerned him so much that he peered into it and directed his flashlight too. 

“Brainz? What’s the matter…?”

He shrugged it off right there. 

“Forgot about the camera.”   
  


“ _ Camera?” _

He let Toriel lean over as he parted the bush for her to see.

“Yeah, see? There’s cameras all over this entire place, that’s how the idiots were able to track me before. Y’didn’t know about these?”

No, she did not. This was news to Toriel,  _ disturbing  _ news. 

“ _ No.  _ These were  _ not  _ installed while I still existed outside of the Ruins and I would  _ not  _ allow for that to  _ change.  _ This had to have been put in place by  **_Asgore…”_ **

Every time she said that name, it made her a little bit sadder. Every time she felt a little bit sadder, Toriel internalized it into anger to make it hurt less. Every time she thought about this, she liked herself a little bit less… 

Something alarming came to her mind, she asked Brainz about it before wondering if she should give him more anxiety. 

“The military could have  _ discovered  _ this…”   
She expected those eyes to widen again and even prepared for more gunfire as Brainz would destroy the camera in a fit of rage. But  _ no… _ he just shook his head, being the calmer of the two now. 

“Mmn nah-nah-nah, they can’t. I  _ may  _ have broken the screen in the lab where they’d be able to? But uhm, I made it to where uh-  _ Alphys  _ is the only one who can see them now, so yeah.”

“...  _ Who the hell is Alphys?” _

Brainz answered Toriel as if this should’ve been obvious to her, yet he found himself hanging on words and snapping his painfully cold fingers to help with thought.

“ _ Y’know.  _ **Dr. Alphys.** The-the-theeuhhh- the  _ scientist?  _ The royal scientist. She’s this stupid little lizard.  _ Fucked up, too.  _ I mean  **_oh man,_ ** you think  _ I’m  _ so bad? This bitch is a fuck’n  **_lunatic;_ ** the shit she’s done. I mean-  _ she helps  _ fuck’n  _ Asgore  _ with his murder’n shit. She told me herself, inside of her little bunker she’s got like thirty people inside.”

Toriel had three things to say about this monster. The first would have been how she still has no idea who Brainz is talking about. The second was something of a meaner nature, some rather disdainful and prejudiced comment about this doctor who aided with the death of all these humans. The  _ third  _ had very little to do with Alphys and it was what Toriel ultimately went with.

“There are monsters who are  _ safe  _ from this?”

Brainz nodded more nonchalantly. 

“Oh yeah, there’s like a refugee center under the lab- well hmm-  _ I dunno  _ now. I wouldn’t call em ‘ _ safe’,  _ more like  _ hiding.  _ They get found out, they’re all dead. I mean, I ended up there cause the elevator failed: so like, if the military checks out the  _ shaft  _ then they’re screwed. There’s a big ass door in the lab too that leads right down, and it  _ looked like  _ they were trying to open it soo…”

He thought about it some more, lightly nibbling on his thumb. When he spoke again, he sounded uncomfortable.

“They could still be fine, they could all be  _ dead-  _ I-i. I  _ dunno.  _ I mean-.”

Brainz still had that pager in his pocket, he brought it out to observe its blank screen.

“- haven’t heard this thing go off for a  _ while  _ now, so  _ maybe.  _ But also, the whole place is in a blackout so even if the military  _ did  _ get them: I don’t think this camera here is working anymore, so they wouldn’t be able to see us anyway.” 

“Do you believe that they are all still alive?”

Brainz had a small fidget and his stammers worsened as he seemed to become upset in an instant. 

“I-I have no freaking idea. Ok? I-i-i dunno. W-why would I know? It’s not like it freaking matters  _ anyway  _ since we’re all going to  _ die  _ so who the fuck  **_cares?”_ **

He tossed the inactive pager into the bush and stormed to the doors with such impatience in his voice. So eager to change the subject and forget.

“Can we just freaking  _ go  _ already? I’m fucking freezing half to death here and I wanna get out of being in the fucking  _ open.” _

Toriel straightened herself and folded up her claws.

“Of  _ course,  _ head back inside and I will be with you in a moment.”

There was very little chance Brainz would actually listen to her, he just squinted skeptically and slowed his words.

“ _ Whyyy?  _ What’re you doing…” 

“I am going to enchant your trap so that I will be able to sense when it has gone off. But please, get out from the cold and warm up by the fire. I will not be long.”

He stuck around a little bit longer to keep squinting at her. 

“ _You can do that?_ I mean- _whatever_ ** _fine._** You better not fuck it up or set it off on yourself though, because if you _do_ I ain’t gonna freaking rescue you.” 

She just nodded at him.

“Very well.”   
  


“How’re you gonna be able to see without the flashlight?”   
  


Come now…  _ he  _ asked the redundant question this time. Toriel knew that he was just coming up with excuses not to leave her alone no matter how little he thought of them. He either didn’t trust  _ her _ or the unknown world of darkness that surrounded her outside. Either way, despite his claims of apathy and selfishness: Brainz couldn’t actually make himself leave without her. Toriel had to work on him for an additional couple of minutes before finally hearing his departing footsteps.

…

She did not tell Brainz a lie. It only took her a moment to bind the trap to herself, Toriel could have done this with him standing right there and he wouldn’t have noticed at all. Toriel did not tell him a lie… but she failed to tell him the full truth; specifically the part where she reached into the bush and recovered the discarded pager. Brainz was the one who mentioned using everything that could possibly help… Toriel did not want to further upset him by devaluing his impulsive decision. He did not need to know what she did here. 

Guided by the glow from her magic, Toriel secluded herself from the rest of the underground once more. She pushed the doors shut and began replacing the furniture that kept them closed, when Brainz spoke up from behind her. During the startled squeal that resulted from this, Toriel slipped the restraint on her flame and the surge of magic caused it to blow up in her face. 

In the now pitch blackness, the same voice that surprised her piped up. 

“D’oh  _ fuck!  _ Are you  **_okay?!_ ** Toriel, are you alright? I didn’t mean to-.”

Brainz quickly devolved into clumsy and panicked stammers but they would cease when he was suddenly able to see again. Another flame came into existence and revealed the monster who was still smoking and now wore a scorch mark on her face, which didn’t look too happy. 

Part of the human was still stuck in awe which kept his eyes fully widened, his hands were pressing tightly into the sides of his head and only removed themselves to make the largest apologetic gestures he could manage. 

“I am.  _ So. Fucking. Sorry.  _ I did  _ not  _ mean to fucking do that. Oh.  **_God_ ** I did not mean to do that. That was an accident, did I hurt you? It was an accident. I didn’t- It was an accident.”

On that note, Brainz covered his eyes and forehead with his hands and hunched over with a long guttural groan directed at himself that ended with an exclamation.

“ **_Fuck!”_ **

  
  
  


Toriel made a modest sounding sigh and wiped the burns right off of herself with her free arm. 

“I am quite alright, Brainz… You need not worry about  _ me.. _ .”

She was not amused in the slightest for this little ‘prank’ that he pulled, but Toriel was more irritated with the fact that she slipped like that. Her self pride was the only thing that got damaged here and superficially too. She was too good at what she did to have a mishap as silly as  _ that  _ happening… maybe if she didn’t feel so ‘yucky’. 

“Let’s return then.”   
She said, still retaining some irritation.

Brainz though was still folded up and muttering.

“It was an accident… it was an accident… it was an accident…”

He was also shivering quite badly, worse than when he was outside. Toriel could hear his teeth trying to pulverize each other as he trembled. Her irritation was gone on the spot, traded for concern. So she approached him slowly, trying to console him now.

“It is  _ alright,  _ Brainz. You only startled me, that is all. I am  _ fine. _ ”

She didn’t even know if he could hear her now. He was deaf to every assurance she gave that he did not harm her in any way. Toriel felt horrible and now felt only blame for herself that she caused this episode of suffering. Such a small and insignificant thing escalated like this. To him it was like one mistake he made would cause her to despise him for the rest of their lives. Brainz was stuck defending himself to someone who would never listen to him. 

What could she do? He did not like being touched, embracing him would make it worse and she couldn’t get him to see her again. The only thing that she came up with to say next was the most redundant thing she could think of, it was the last thing she felt she would have had to say for something as menial as this.

“Please, don’t do this to yourself: I forgive you for what happened.” 

And just like that, Brainz emerged with a disgusted look on his face.

“ **What.”**

He heard her just fine, she did too. She told him something that she did the moment it happened. She believed what he had just been saying; it was an accident, and Toriel forgave him for it. Even if he did this on purpose, that would not have changed her mind. 

“I forgive you, Brainz.”

Brainz just stood there, as if he had frozen up. He didn’t know what to do for the longest time and the only thing he did manage… was to become angry. 

“I  _ told  _ you I was sorry. I didn’t fucking mean to do it, you don’t have to fuck with me.”

Then it finally hit her, everything she learned was pointing to this in one way or the other. Brainz could not comprehend forgiveness. Why would he be able to? His entire life was only making mistakes and suffering from every single one until his untimely death. Nobody ever let him heal from them, his wounds could never close and all he could do was be ready for another blow where he was weakened. 

If he ‘forgave’ you for anything, it was only because it was ‘alright’, he felt he deserved it anyway. You were right for hurting him then. If you forgave him though… then you were lying to him. It was no wonder he was always so angry, and why he could fall to such unfathomable  _ rage.  _ He had every misdeed in the world sitting and burdening him. 

So, when he witnessed Toriel saying that defunct word: she was only getting back at him for what he did. Nothing she could say right now (or think to say) would compare to 46 years of poison. Was it even that low? Or did all the time wasted on his deaths count? What would all that add up to? 100 years? 200?  _ 500?  _ **1,000?**

Toriel… could not think about that right now. She had a much more immediate thing to solve, something she would have to lie about no matter how much she hated doing it.

“Well, I suppose we are  _ even  _ now.”

It felt like the single most scummy and selfish lie she had ever told… but it worked. Brainz could only make this one sarcastic remark before he laughed at her jeeringly. 

“ **_Yeah fucking right!”_ **

All Toriel could do was smile and keep herself from weeping for him as he basked in his own hatred. Watch him crack up and shake his head at the ‘ridiculous notions’ that he should have learned long ago. While she was unsure about how she would help him if they had a future together, this was the first barb prodding at her that made her feel that she  _ couldn’t  _ help him. It wasn’t like she was ever going to give up though… 

Brainz contained himself again and shook his pistol at Toriel while parting the hair from his face.

“Good one. That’s a real fuck’n good one.”

He turned around and started walking back for the house, muttering amusedly to himself.

“ ‘ _ Now we’re even’  _ you fuck’n  _ wish _ ,  _ ha!”  _

Toriel followed him behind, she kept her light dim so he wouldn’t be able to see how wet her eyes were.

…

And to think… this all happened because of…  _ Well,  _ he wouldn’t have frightened her so much if she wasn’t already on edge. Right before the large doors had come together again, Toriel could have sworn she saw something. Something she just  _ felt _ staring at her from the darkness, something  **R̵͇̱͑̈̅̔͛E̴͍̮͛̿̐͑̑̒͂̈́͛̕D̸̢̙̜̣͈̲͔̺͍̈́͌̂͊̅̚͝...**

  
  


  
  



	31. 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, all it takes is a familiar tune...

“Again, you’re  **_sure_ ** you’re alright?”

Toriel honestly didn’t think she would hear this question five times in five minutes but here she was trying her very damndest to convince someone who wasn’t listening to her. 

“Brainz,  **_please._ ** I do not think I can be more direct with you in saying that I am utterly  **_fine._ ** You are going to worry yourself  _ sick.”  _

She did  _ try _ to get him to sit down at their makeshift table but Brainz wanted to pace around as he did when nervous. 

“It blew up in your  _ face,  _ Toriel. If that happened to me, I wouldn’t  _ have  _ a face anymore.”

“And I have already told you that magic is not comparable to  _ pipe bombs,  _ for that little accident to harm me it would require  _ intent  _ to cause harm. Neither you nor I wished to cause harm, did we?” 

It was a miracle that this one broke through to him.

“Alright, alright.”

He said.

“I’ll take your word, but seriously for the record I  _ am  _ sorry about that.”

Toriel groaned hearing that for the  _ 17th  _ time. While she was always going to feel bad he thought this way, it was becoming tiring.

“ _ Enough  _ of this, I do not want to hear another apology. If you would like to though, could you tell me why you came back down in the first place?”

Brainz stood still for once and was pivoting his upright assault rifle on the floor.

“To be honest? I actually never left.”

Her eyes widened a bit.

“You didn’t? But. I heard you walk away.”

He shook his head at her and demonstrated his trick when he brought it up.

“Mmn-mn, I just kind of lightened my footsteps to make it sound like I was walking away. Yeah.”

Her grip on the pager concealed in her one claw tightened. 

“And. You were watching me the entire time?”

Toriel’s voice lost a little bit of strength at the end, she was wondering if her next course of action would be to admit to what she did. 

Brainz however, put that anxiousness to rest.

“I mean, I wasn’t paying attention to  _ you  _ so much as if anything was going to come and try and.  _ Kill  _ you.”

“Ohh, Sw- Brainz…”

“ _ So…” _ _  
_ He said with his fingers tapping the business end of his long gun. 

“Now what?” 

“Hmn?” 

Brainz picked up his weapon and started a more relaxed pace around the room.

“What do we do now? I mean- here we are just waiting in the dark for someone to try and kill us, but what  _ else?  _ There’s gotta be something we gotta do now.”

Toriel didn’t follow, she innocently shook her head at him. It led Brainz to stop and stand before her like he was just waiting for an order. Him and his torn up and bloodied clothes, his dried and cracked lips, and those tired eyes… They were the only thing that set Toriel off for once, she stood up and went into ‘mom mode’.

“Why yes, there  _ is  _ something that I need to do and I need to do it  _ right now  _ and I cannot  _ believe  _ I have not taken care of this until  _ now.” _

“Ok, what?” 

“ _ You.” _

She pointed to him.

“Me?”

“Yes,  _ you.  _ I need to take care of  _ you. Look at you _ , you poor thing! I can’t believe I have been so  _ neglectful! _ ”

“The’ell are you talking about? I’m fine.”

Oh no he was  _ not.  _ Toriel fussed like she had never fussed before over him while he just turned helplessly to follow her.

“You need to be bathed and your  _ clothes  _ need to be-.”

The pink jacket made her feel a chill.

“- you need new clothes!” 

“Wait, what?  _ No I don’t.”  _

Yes he did. He had numerous tears and punctures in his garments that were all soiled with blood both dry and still moist. The one that made Toriel cringe the most had to be the gaping hole in Brainz’s jeans because of what it revealed. The nastiest and stickiest looking mess of scar tissue she had ever seen and oh god, the  _ scars.  _ He had nearly twice as many as the first time she saw him. His face had dozens of scratch marks and his hands were all sliced up, not to mention that nasty zig-zaggy cut in his shoulder. In just a glance, Brainz looked even worse than he did when he fell down. There was nothing that could be said about the  _ smell,  _ words could not describe how awful it was. 

Toriel could already tell that the clothing situation was going to be a long and difficult argument. There were more urgent needs to take care of. 

“We can put that aside for now, I need to fix you something _ :  _ you must be  **_starving!”_ **   
  


She saw him stutter, he was  _ going  _ to protest but then he thought about it and he wilted right there. Brainz turned his head to her and looked half  _ dead,  _ no emotion. 

“I am  _ so _ fucking thirsty right now.”

This was a start, Toriel made for the kitchen and gestured to the chair behind her as she went.

“ _ O-kay.  _ I will be right back, why don’t you sit down and take a rest?”

Her kitchen was spared the most during the requisition of furniture for the barricades just because everything was affixed to the walls. Toriel had a small moment of anxiety quelled by quick relief when she retrieved a glass from the cupboard. She half expected the sink not to work anymore. Toriel also half expected that Brainz wouldn’t listen to her advice and was surprised to see him sitting down and… muttering something. He stopped when she came in so Toriel didn’t ask about it. Brainz stared at that full glass all the way until it was placed before him. 

“Thanks…”

Brainz brought the water closer to him with such care, like he wasn’t going to let one drop go to waste. He brought the glass close to his mouth but then he sat back after stalling for a moment with his eyes squinted. Toriel asked him of course, what was wrong. 

He sounded dubious.

“I dunno. I got this strange feeling you slipped something into this. Like you’re gonna spike me out and go in my head again…”

Nevermind being preposterous, that was downright hurtful. There was so much she could have told him off about but she was already too wise to argue with his irrational thoughts. Toriel just stood there without saying a word. If he didn’t take a drink, she’d have to think of ways to work around it, like dealing with a child who wouldn’t eat their greens. She let Brainz say what he wanted, without daring to validate it. Eventually he cut it out with a shrug.

“Y’know what, fuck it. I’m just gonna tell myself you’d have nothing to gain and you’re  _ fucked _ if I go down.”

He rushed the thought out so he could down that life saving glass faster and give the most guttural sounding sigh when he was finished that even left him panting and speaking under his breath.

“Holy fucking shit I’ve never been more thirsty in my entire life…” 

“Would you like more water?”

Brainz extended the arm with the glass towards her.

“ _ Please…”  _

She was more than happy to oblige and even happier to hear relief in Brainz’s voice after he finished his third glass. It made her feel just a degree better seeing the thirsty flower perk up with one less thing to bother him. Toriel even went out on a limb to ask Brainz if he felt better now.

“ _ Phew.  _ Oh yeah-  _ much  _ better. Thanks.” 

He was leaning back and licking his lips, his ever present cynicism lightened up too. 

Toriel could not be more modest.

“Of  _ course,  _ Brainz. I am sorry I did not offer this  _ before,  _ you poor thing.”

But he shook his head and waved his arm to dispel her self criticism.

“No, don’t be. I wasn’t even thinking of myself either. Haven’t been able to sit down and realize I’m so dehydrated. I always feel this sick, it’s hard to tell.”

“What about food?”

She said, and followed it up when Brainz didn’t say anything.

“When was the last time you had something to eat?”

He just shook his head this time, this was  _ not  _ what Toriel wanted. She pried and folded her arms. 

“ _ Brainz…” _

That worked, he would shake his head again but it was out of ignorance.

“I don’t  _ know.  _ Last thing I ate was a pack of ramen noodles, I think that was like a  _ day ago  _ or something? I dunno it was probably  _ two.  _ Again, I’ve been in way too much constant pain to know my insides are trying to devour themselves.”

“... So, you are hungry…?”

  
  


“My god, you  _ kiddin me?  _ I’m fuck’n  _ starving!  _ I’m about to look for a freaking  _ garbage  _ bin to eat out of, dudn’t even have to be  _ edible!” _

That’s what she thought. Toriel could tell Brainz he needed to eat something as much as she wanted, but he wasn’t going to cooperate unless it was ‘his’ idea… Hopefully she had something less disgusting in stock for him.

* * *

  
  
  


“What. Is.  **_That_ ** _?” _

**_“That”_ ** was a plate full of pure green magic food obtained from the vegetoids: they were very green and very good for you. It was also the only real food Toriel had in stock as she lacked the ingredients to really prepare anything such as a pie. This information was shared with Brainz but did nothing to unwrinkle his nose. 

“Oh my god, they’re glowing.” 

Toriel would assert herself a little more as she had to tell him again, keeping her claws folded up and tilting them towards the plate that Brainz wouldn’t stop pointing at like he was spying on a  _ bug.  _

_ “Yes.  _ They are radiant with green magic which encourages  _ healing  _ and feeling  _ better.” _

“This shit’s  _ radioactive,  _ you’re tryn’ta kill me!” 

That melodramatic display told her exactly how much of what she said Brainz listened to, considering she told him the exact  _ opposite  _ of what he whined about. She maintained a stiff upper lip with her patience; after all, Toriel had experience with this kind of difficulty that predated Brainz. 

“You know that it is  _ not.  _ I would not serve you anything that could harm you, this is very healthy for humans and monsters alike.”

With one swift move, Brainz pushed himself away from the table and snubbed the meal. 

“Oh no.  _ Uhn-uhh!  _ I am  _ not  _ touching  **_that!_ ** No way!” 

Time for the defensive plea.

“ _ Brainz,  _ you have not even tried it. How do you know you will not like it if you will not give it a chance?” 

He just closed his eyes and decisively shook his head.

“ _ Nnope,  _ I ain’t touchin  _ anything  _ ‘magical’ no way. Not even if that was the  _ last thing  _ on earth.”

He went straight for the ultimatum protest, the most obvious sign that this would be a stalemate. Toriel rubbed her eyes and sighed. Considering some of the things he actually ate, Toriel was all but sure he wouldn’t turn up his nose to these if  _ he  _ found them. Brainz was just being difficult for the sake of being difficult. She was about to start this battle with him but then she remembered something he ate not too long ago and raised an eye to him.

“What about that  _ burger  _ you were so eager to eat?”

When Toriel saw his eyes flick open, she had to resist smirking.

“What do you think  _ that  _ was made of?” 

Brainz made a pretty peculiar face now. Toriel figured she got him now. She gave Brainz all the time he needed to think about all the comebacks he wanted to make… specifically realizing how none of them would work. There were two ways this would go now. 

  1. The child feels a very strong sense of silliness and does what the parent wishes to alleviate this silly feeling. They’ll laugh about it when they realize what a big fuss they made over something they _like_ in the end.
  2. The child lost the dispute but the parent is not allowed to win either and now no one is happy… 



Toriel realized which choice Brainz made as soon as she saw the sneer form on his face.

“I still ain’t eating this.” 

  
  


Admittedly, that was enough to strike her temper. The exasperation raised her voice. 

“For goodness sake, Brainz! Why must you insist on being so  _ difficult?  _ I have done everything I could to provide for you and you have contended with me the entire  _ time!”  _

Again, she wasn’t really angry at him but frustrated and scared. He was willfully hurting himself and it was making her feel helpless again. Toriel was going to do everything in her power not to go back to that place, she had been given this chance and she was going to fight even if it meant with him.

“I  _ only  _ wish to help you, but you will not  _ trust me.  _ May I ask you to just.  _ Trust me  _ for at the very least  _ one  _ thing? This is  _ all I ask of you.  _ To  **_trust me.”_ **

Toriel knew Brainz would fight right back but she didn’t care at this point. She said what she wanted to say and would follow it up with more unpleasant things if she had to. Brainz got up from his chair and whipped his finger at her as fast as he started his retort. Though, he refrained from raising his voice or even coming off aggressively. 

“ _ Hey.  _ Don’t start with me with  **‘trust’.** Just don’t. You think I haven’t trusted you, Toriel? I think I’ve been trusting you  _ more  _ than enough, too much even. I trusted you enough not to kill you after everything you’ve done to me that you told me.  _ Every  _ part of me wanted me to, to protect myself but I  _ trusted  _ you and I said no. I  _ trusted you  _ not to shoot me in the back outside, even when you  _ stabbed me  _ in the back when you took away my guns and lied.”

Brainz held off for a moment to let his words sink in, only making a couple of sharp exhales and sniffs. When he started again, he just sounded tired. He wasn’t telling her off so much as just telling her. 

“I trusted you enough, to not set up what I wanted outside the door… and. I haven’t even asked what we’re going to do about that yet. I mean what do we plan to do if they  _ come,  _ Toriel?” 

There he was migrating to another subject as he did. Toriel had no intention of preventing this, though. It had become too depressing too quickly over something as basic as wanting to feed him. It was better to go back to the grim realities with the soldiers and the death. So she stuffed the misery down to wherever it would fit and took a deep breath to clear it. If anything, she would leave the controversial plate here in case Brainz changed his mind; it wasn’t like it could go ‘bad’ or anything.

“This trap will incapacitate them, yes? This is what you said?”

Back to pacing he was, but slower and in a much smaller circle. 

“Yeah, it should but  _ that’s-.” _

A long and drawn out yawn interrupted him, he tried to speak through it.

“- ( _that’s ohl’ly onnne)_ _mmn._ It’s only gonna get one of them, soldiers usually travel in packs. Y’know-.”

An aftershock of a yawn sneaked in.

“-( _ squaads). Gghhh.  _ Yeah though, say someone actually  _ does  _ come by- which y’know what, nobody might even  _ come _ cause it’s so  _ cold  _ out there and dark I don’t think they have the gear for it-  _ anyway.  _ Anyway-anyway-anyway, least we would see would be like three to four people. We got  _ one  _ dangling upside down and yelling and what not, what about the others? Not only are they gonna try and get them out, but they’ll be  _ waiting  _ for us.” 

Toriel folded up her claws into her usual ‘thinking position’ and looked to the floor. Apart from looking like she was figuring something out, she hadn’t a clue on how to  _ begin  _ to do that. Why couldn’t she have thought about this before? She was so ‘happy’ to avoid the killing that she didn’t entertain the chance that it couldn’t be avoided. Too hopeful, too reluctant to think about it… too hopeful that if she just stayed put that it would miraculously turn out OK in the end. What was she thinking?

Suddenly, Brainz started talking again.

“I think I get what you wanted though-.”

Before he went into his theory though, he decided to sit back down. Halfway through his explanation, he would lean his arm onto the table to rest his head (After pushing the plate of greens away). He yawned again too before getting on with it.

“- you say only one of them comes, for some reason just pretend it's one. He comes, he gets snared and we both go up to him. And we disarm him of everything, weapons, communications equipment,  _ especially  _ that fuck’n homicide vest. We get that thing off him first and we chuck it as fast as we can before it goes off on us. We’re… We’re basically kidnapping him, Toriel. Which looks and sounds  _ really bad  _ but obviously he won't know that we’re saving his life. Then I imagine you’re gonna try to get through to him, whatever good that may do.”

Somehow, Brainz literally put the lucid hopes of hers into palpable words. What was stranger was the lack of sarcastic comments or skeptical gestures to break it up. He was actually giving Toriel  _ credit  _ with this… even as the force behind his words was weakening as the yawns became more frequent. After the last one, he tried to shake his head to rouse himself.

“ _ Hoouf!  _ I’m sorry, dunno why I’m fuck’n yawning so much, I hate when this happens.  _ Anyway.  _ Look, I ain’t gonna tell you that ‘that would never work’ or whatever because I honestly don’t know. I don’t know how anything works anymore. Might work, might not: we probably won’t get to know though.” 

The most audible of yawns came out after that, Brainz (mostly) silently swore at it.

“ _ Haagh,  _ fuck off.” 

So Brainz obviously needed sleep, those bags upon bags under his eyes were not just for show. Toriel was not going to suggest  _ anything  _ though. She would try to coax him to his own needs again. Softly stating things he could not argue with.

“You look tired.” 

Brainz just flashed her a quick smirk.

“That’s just how I look.”

“You sound tired too.”

This time he subtly shook his head before rubbing his eyes.

“Nah, that’s just the adrenaline wearing off. Haven’t had to run or fight for my life for a while. So it’s just not keeping me awake…  _ mmm hmmm.” _

He could have been partially right about that, one minute he was up and about and now he seemed half awake. Toriel asked the first question, lowering her voice a little more.

“You have not slept for a long time, have you?” 

Brainz’s voice was mostly creaking now, possessing the minimal volume and effort to project it.

“Mmm, no. Haven’t willfully made myself sleep in years. I don’t ‘sleep’, more so I just-  _ mmf-  _ I keep going until I pass out or get knocked unconscious… I mean the last time I shut my eyes, I literally blacked out from G-force.”

“Do you wish you could go to sleep? Properly I mean?”

Toriel saw him fold up his arms on the table to better seat his head.

“No. What I wish. Is to be awake forever. So no one can get me when I’m not looking.” 

The fireplace grew warmer, the heat from the flames was like a thick blanket in the coldest winter. Toriel was satisfied with it and kept speaking in the low and soothing voice.

“At least you know. If you fell asleep here, I would be able to watch for you.”

“Mmmn.”

He muttered.

“Dun worry, I ain’t gonna. Do that. Minute I do, we’ll hear a knock on the door. Just gonna rest my eyes a bit, help me keep em open.”   
  


“It is good that it is quiet. It is safe. I can keep you warm, you don’t have to worry.”   
  


“ _ Mmn-hmn…”  _

“You can rest. Close your eyes. Dream of cinnamon pies…” 

“ _ Mmnn…” _

His responses were no more than tired grunts at this point. He started acknowledging her slower and slower when Toriel began telling him about this lullaby she came up with to help her children fall asleep. Brainz didn’t make any noise when by the time Toriel demonstrated the third verse of it. 

“Brainz?”

No matter how many times she softly called out his name, Brainz would not respond. He was out like a light with his head burrowed into his arms. She held a weary smile for him.

“Good boy.”

  
  


The hardest thing Toriel had to do now would be to slip by the sleeping human. No matter how much he needed this sleep, Brainz was the lightest sleeper ever. One slight disturbance and he would wake up. It took an extra long time to shuffle her feet out of the room, not willing to risk a creaking floorboard. She did this just so she could head to her undone room and return with a blanket to drape over Brainz. Doing that itself was a precise operation but it paid off seeing him look a little more comfortable. Toriel still wished she could have convinced him to rest on an actual mattress but this would have to do. When she finished with the blanket, Toriel could not refrain from doing one more thing with him.

She brought the tip of her muzzle down close to Brainz and pecked his exposed forehead in the lightest way. Brainz made a low mumble but did not stir. It was a risk for sure but he deserved the bit of love… he deserved so much more. 

“Poor little boy…” 

With all that out of the way, Toriel would gently lower herself onto the floor and sit with her legs crossed. Everything was calm. Toriel did what she said she would and watched over him while he slept. She could not escape the anxiety though. The entire time she sat here, Toriel could not clear her mind of what Brainz said; how they would be disturbed the moment he fell asleep. This was not going to be true, it  _ better  _ not end up true. 

* * *

  
  


After a good long while, Toriel began to have her own difficulty keeping her eyes open. The warmth and calm began to work with her own lack of sleep. Toriel had no intention of joining Brainz and breaking her promise to watch over him, even as her eyelids grew heavier. She tried to think of quiet things she could do to occupy herself but found she could not deviate from simply watching the form slumped over the table. Brainz was still, ‘peacefully’ still in a way. It was almost as if he would never rise again, still as the dead. 

What a terrible thing to ponder. Toriel felt she best put away these thoughts, but she simply couldn’t. Seeing that man so unmoving and collapsed from his seat in the present brought Toriel to all times and places where Brainz was exactly as he was now… following a pistol being placed into his mouth. The crisp percussion from the fireplace became muffled and distorted, almost imitating the sound of the blood trickling from the tabletop and dripping to the floor. For a moment her tired eyes saw dozens of handguns scattered around, all with their barrels still smoking.  **While the shots always played a different note, the** **_*THUD!*_ ** **that came next was always the same…**

_ *gasp!* _

Toriel opened her eyes and sat up with a shake. Immediately her tired eyes studied the slumped human and the weapons leaning against the table beside him. He wasn’t moving at all, undisturbed by the sound she made. In an instant she decided to get up, now fully awake from the rapid onset of terror but  _ no,  _ wait… None of these sounds followed her from the dream, she could not hear anything but the fire and something else just barely audible over the crackles. It was a slow and unchanging rhythm coming from Brainz,  _ breathing.  _ Toriel was only able to sit back down after hearing Brainz breathe for a full minute. Even back against the mantle, she made sure she could still pick up the long yet patient breaths. Soon they too joined the synergy of things that tried to relax her into closing her eyes again. 

This time, Toriel thought of a way to keep herself awake. She was going to hum a melody to herself as quietly as she could. The tune she had in mind was a little different than the one she sang to Brainz; it hadn’t lyrics but it maintained the soporific effect on weary souls. It was ironic in this circumstance but the tune would not further coerce her into slumber, it saddened her too much now to do that. 

Toriel hummed the song slowly and sadly with no one to listen other than herself and the flowers in her home. She hummed as she kept her gaze on the sleeping man, only pausing if she needed to hear him breathe again. More time passed, Toriel wasn’t even aware of how much had gone. She wasn’t really aware of anything outside of her little musical trance until Brainz was still no more. 

He started shifting and fidgeting around while making increasingly troubled sounding grunts and groans. Toriel was up to her feet again and began to contemplate what to do; whether to try and comfort him or to leave him alone even though it seemed like he was having a bad dream. She would not get to act on any choice unfortunately because one of Brainz’s unconscious movements caused his rifle to topple over from its precarious lean. 

Toriel knew Brainz’s rest was over before the gun even hit the floor, there was no way she could have caught it. The gun did not go off but the impact it made was jarring enough to make Brainz lurch up with a frightened shout. His eyes were unsheathed and he frantically scanned the room but came to an abrupt halt when he saw Toriel. For a moment he just  _ stared  _ at her, returning to being motionless with this  _ ‘blank’  _ look on his face. Something was wrong…

What bothered Toriel was not the fact that ‘ _ blank’  _ wasn’t good enough to describe it when she had this feeling that Brainz wasn’t actually there. It was strange, the more they looked at each other, the more Toriel felt that it wasn’t  _ him  _ staring at her. But no, it wasn’t that that bothered her nor was it the fact that both of Brainz’s eyes were blood red. What upset her in the lone second they stared at each other was that Brainz gave Toriel this exact same look the first time they had ever met; right before-

-his pupils nearly covered all of the color as they tripled in size.  _ Then _ he yelled with terror. Brainz thrashed and threw himself onto the floor, felling the chair too. He began scrambling to free himself from the blanket that had twisted around him and when he managed that, Brainz pushed himself backwards. This was just the same as before; he was backing away from  _ Toriel,  _ incited by some  _ extreme  _ irrational  _ fear.  _ Just like before it left her standing there scared and utterly  _ lost  _ as to what was happening or what to  _ do…  _ No, she knew what to do actually, she was not going to make the same mistake as before. 

Toriel held her claws in front with their palms facing Brainz and began to step  _ backwards,  _ away from him. Whatever this was, whatever was afflicting this man had followed him when he ‘woke up’. Brainz was looking at Toriel but all he could see was his nightmare. This time, his ‘nightmare’ was not going to advance upon him as he cowered away, it was going to give him the reprieve he needed to calm down and wake up. Brainz hit a corner and his unconscious panic doubled. There was one thing that differed from their first meeting, something that was rather unforeseen for Toriel until right this moment. When Brainz had no more room to retreat, he leapt up to his feet and pulled out his handgun. He probably would have done the same before if Toriel did not strip him of his weapons. 

With two things now staring Toriel down, she would soon feel the wall opposite of Brainz colliding with her back. Strangely though, being cornered and quite likely to  _ die  _ did not make her feel… how those things  _ should.  _ She could have been hysterical with fright or more upset that Brainz was going to be alone to cope with something he unintentionally just did. But no, she felt too  _ strange  _ for any of that. This strange feeling that could not have come from her own thoughts was making her feel unfathomable  _ curious.  _ It was like Toriel would be unable to feel another solitary emotion until she figured out what  _ exactly  _ Brainz could be seeing by looking at her, because it was  _ certainly  _ not Toriel. 

…

‘Ohh nooo….’

There were the emotions. How apt that the first one she felt was the farthest throw away from happiness, realizing  _ exactly  _ why seeing her form painted by a nightmare resulted in this hysteria. In fact, now Toriel felt  _ silly:  _ she took it so personally when Brainz had a crippling fear attack on their first meeting when in  _ reality _ it was  **Not-Toriel.**

‘ _ Well. _ This puts a few mysteries to rest.’

Toriel had all of this thinking done within the lone second she hit the wall and saw the gun being pointed at her. Really this felt more like a minute or two for her to get her thoughts together. Now there were a  _ lot  _ of things Toriel needed to feel about this development, it was  _ very very  _ bad after all and made everything  _ so  _ much worse. That malevolent and manipulative hate demon manifested from multiple lifetimes of cruelty was still-  _ looking  _ like Toriel probably only because she was similar to the thing mostly to  _ blame  _ for it; that twiggy beast,  _ Margillia…  _ \-  **_Only_ ** in the sense that she was a mother and Toriel also tried to be a mother which probably spurred the identity change… But then again, if Not-Toriel was haunting Brainz before he actually  _ met  _ the monster; he had to have met  _ real _ Toriel  **_before_ ** he met her.  _ How can THAT make any sense?!  _ Toriel really had to-  **_Realize Brainz was about to shoot her with the same prejudice he has for his most hated demon._ **

* * *

“ _ Brainz  _ wait! It’s ME! It’s  _ Toriel!  _ I’m Toriel! I am  _ REAL!  _ It’s  _ me  _ swe-( _ no,  _ that’s what  _ she  _ says!)  _ Er-  _ It’s  _ Me!” _

The previous strategy of being passive and unthreatening for him went out the window the moment Toriel knew how much red Brainz was seeing. They should have discussed it before instead of shrugging it off, she knew there was something else. Brainz did not shoot her yet, amazingly. The more she jumped up and down, shaking the room and yelling; the more Brainz started to squint and his hyperventilations slowed. Eventually he started blinking and Toriel could see the color reclaiming its space in his eyes which were only half as red now. Brainz rubbed his eyes and finally saw Toriel when he looked up at her.

“Toriel…?” 

He managed that one word while he continually fought to regain his breath. 

She stopped her crazed movements and just nodded very quickly while trying to return to a calming voice.

“Yes, it’s me. Just Toriel.” 

It took Brainz another minute of panting and reluctantly looking around before he saw the gun in his hand and lowered it while looking sick on the spot. 

“Oh my god.” 

“It’s alright, Brainz. Just  _ relax. _ ”

“ _ Ohh  _ my god.” 

“Take it  _ easy,  _ it is alright. You are safe.”

  
“ _Oohhh noo.”_

He sounded like he had just eaten the most disgusting meal of his life and had gotten ill from it on the spot. For these select few seconds, Brainz shared the same feelings for the gun in his hand with Toriel. He could not put it away fast enough nor could he shake his head and make the most miserable sounding whine ever just to answer her.

“Not  _ mee. You.  _ I almost fucking  _ killed you!”  _

Brainz topped his most miserable sound as he hunched over squeezing his head. Of course he did this in the face of Toriel’s objections and reassurances, but he wasn’t going to listen to any of them. He was too busy feeling every kind of awful  _ at  _ himself… what a way to wake up from a nap. 

“Ohh my god, I’m so sorry: I don’t know what came over me.  _ Ohh  _ I fucking hate myself so much,  _ so  _ fucking much.” 

Toriel and he both knew she hated little more than seeing him hate himself, they were also very aware and very much expected that she would speak in defense of him. They both knew this would drag on and only grow as an issue if she tried to work on it. So she didn’t… 

Toriel tried her hand at changing the subject.

“Can you tell me what happened at the very least?”

Honestly she didn’t see this working in any sense, knowing Brainz would just start an argument with her that would drift away from this… that’s what she  _ wanted. Instead,  _ Brainz looked right at her with this fraught face and spoke with his voice still shaking. 

“I, I don’t know. One minute I was talkin to you and then suddenly I just started hearing this  _ song!” _

Oh… The dread was back, but what were the odds that Toriel could have accidentally influenced his dream and where were the odds that it would affect him so  _ negatively?  _ In the very slim chance this anxiety actually amounted to anything, it was a lullaby and it was a  _ soothing _ thing. Then Toriel saw Brainz clenching his hands into claws and gritting his teeth.

[That fucking song...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sab3Mi62HHE)

“This song, this  _ fffucking  _ song! It haunts me, Toriel! It’s fucking haunting me! First I hear it in this stupid fucking music box? I-i-in the waterland with all the falls? There was this  _ statue  _ and then you put this  _ umbrella  _ a-a-and then it  _ played  _ and it just- I just- it haunted me, it fucking  _ haunted  _ me! I can’t stop hearing it!”

Ok, so this was exactly what she feared; she could put it with the other things that she prayed wouldn’t be true but actually were. From how Brainz started to fall apart during his explanation, it was  _ bad.  _ He started out as angry as he could be, but then he just sounded scared and looked right to Toriel like he was asking for help. Asking for help… for something she inflicted on him, something that brought him to his wit’s end. And she had no idea too. Great job, Tori… 

Toriel really did not want to think about… what  _ happened,  _ as in  _ “Everything that happened”.  _ But no, not the  _ “everything”  _ part or because it was too painful (which it was, granted) but really about  _ how  _ everything happened. But her inquisition wasn’t satisfied yet because Toriel did not  _ want  _ to know something as futile as “How did this happen?”. She wrote off trying to figure that out when her purpose became saving Brainz’s life. Toriel was after a much different kind of “How?” One that applied to far greater than any struggle she, Brainz, everybody underground could be facing right now. Toriel wanted to know, nay: she  _ had  _ to know the answer to this.  **How many times has this happened?**

It was not a pleasant thing to think of to say the least… It was harrowing once she got into it and the more time she spent thinking of it, it was just depressing. How many times did this man fall down here? How many times did he have not one but  _ two  _ worlds sitting on his shoulders,  _ all  _ while he could never stop seeing the smoke from the burning wreckage of his own world behind him? How many times did he walk through this home and down the tunnel and into the hardships she let him wander into?

How many times did he walk into the snow?   
How many times did he hear the song from that music box?

How many times did Brainz get attacked by monsters?

How many times did he have to hurt others just to survive? 

How many times did he  _ kill  _ from desperation… How many times did he feel more awful than ever thought to be possible?

_ How many times did he learn that everybody was condemned to die? _

_ How many times did he try and stop it? _ _  
_ _ How many times did he feel truly helpless no matter what he did? _

_ How many times did he have to learn about his family?  _

How many times did he confront Asgore with his heart broken and dissolving into rage?

How many times did Brainz kill him?

How many times did-

…

_ How many times did Brainz die?  _

How many of them were from fights, how many of them were from monsters or the soldiers?

How many of them were accidents?

How many of them were quick, how many of them were slow and  _ painful? _

How many times did he  _ suffer, alone and scared?  _

_ How many times could he not bear being hurt anymore and ended his  _ **_own life?_ **

_ … _

_ How many times were because of Toriel?  _

_ How many times did Brainz die in this house? _

**_How many times did he fight and suffer to come back here, only for Toriel to cast him away?_ **

**_How many times did she hurt him?_ **

**_How… Many…?_ **

If Not-Toriel was the figurehead based on the thing that brought him the most suffering… How many times did Toriel have to hurt Brainz for her own self to replace the death of his  _ child?  _ How many did it take to even  _ begin  _ to compare with that kind of pain? 

**HOW MANY TIMES?**

How many times did this happen only for Brainz to forget and start it all over again? How many times did this have to happen before certain things began to  _ stick  _ onto him like vague traumatic experiences? 

_ How many times has this all happened before we started keeping track?  _

Toriel had the answers to all of these things, swirling around inside of her. She was never going to be able to find  _ any  _ of them though as there were just far  _ far  _ **_FAR_ ** too many memories to come to terms with. Brainz’s experiences here were  _ innumerable,  _ and this was just concerning the ones that had Toriel in them. If she tried to remember one that was even remotely pleasant, ten more horrific ones would flood her thoughts. 

It was bad. It was so bad, that a lullaby she created for Asriel so long ago, inflicted indescribable agony on Brainz. Everything down here was bad for him, bad in the worst and excessive kind of ways… but nothing and nobody had been more harmful to him than Toriel. 

Not even Pailurn. 

  
  


This did not break her heart, as you could not break something that had already been broken. It ground every last piece of it into dust. 

And to think Brainz felt he needed to apologize to  _ her…  _

At this moment, Toriel was absent. In her place was the loudest, shakiest wretch of a mess scream crying into her claws. It did not stop, it did not weaken. It was so strong that it began to hurt her, it was the sound of her hope finally keeling over. She felt like she was going to fall down right here, she didn’t care anymore: she  _ wanted _ to fall down.  **_No,_ ** she actually didn’t because then she would die and that meant lingering or coming back. Toriel did not wish to die, she wished to  _ cease,  _ to become  _ nothing.  _ Nothing would be able to worsen everything to  _ everyone who ever lived.  _ Why bother trying to do anything now when it was utterly insignificant in the face of all the bad she’s caused? 

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Because you still owe me a favor, that’s why.” 

Brainz’s voice was the only thing she would let pull her from the boundless despair that had opened inside of her. The moment she was back in the real world, a hand pulled her sopping wet mitts away from her face. When Toriel could see more than blobby shapes through the tears, she could see a gauze pad being dabbed onto her claws to dry them up. Brainz picked up her meek little head turn and held another pad down to her on the floor to take. 

“Here, I use these all the time for spills: they’re awesome.”

He had to help her to take and know what to do with the makeshift tissue, but he did so without hesitation or question. He got Toriel started on her face and patted her on the shoulder as he started with her other claw himself.

“Yeah, there you go. Just like that, ok?” 

Toriel didn’t notice him leave, but she saw him come back and offer her a glass brimming to the top with water. She did nothing at first but Brainz insisted in a playful voice that few had ever heard except his late niece. 

“I think you oughta, being you just shed half your water weight. I’m afraid you’re gonna go up in flames if you get close to the fire now.” 

He would make sure she drank all of it by staring at her with that smug little smirk and those soft eyes. When she was done, Brainz retrieved the glass and the soaked pads from her. With that done, Brainz sat himself down right in front of Toriel, closer than he had ever let her come to him before. His legs were crossed and his posture was slouched so he could lean even closer. The next thing he would say would come with a pair of cigarettes in his hand, he held it out to Toriel first.

“It’ll make you feel better, trust me.  I ~~’m good at this stuff.~~ I got experience.” 

Toriel accepted, only because he told her to. Brainz got his lighter to work on the fifth try and lit both of their cigarettes. 

“You remember how to do this right? Like y’know, how to  _ breathe? _ ”

No, not until he told her to. He only sat back with his own puff of smoke after seeing the tiny plume seep from her maw. 

“ _ Very  _ good, now we can get to business.”

He said as he rubbed his flat hands together. 

“Lemme just start by saying? You ain’t fulla  _ shit,  _ Toriel. Congratulations.”

When he paused for an answer or any kind of response, Toriel just looked at him without moving so much as a part of her face. Brainz was having this conversation for her and assuming whatever answer he wanted from her blank look.

“I had my doubts about you until now, the whole:  _ you being me  _ kinda thing? I mean  _ sure  _ you could  _ know  _ everything about me but that’s  _ easy _ . Anyone of you guys can probably do that with mind reading or something… but you tellin me that you  _ were  _ me, that you  _ lived  _ me…”

He shook his head, blew another puff of smoke and made a trio of  _ *tch!*  _ noises. 

“No way in hell you coulda, not while you still thought your life  _ meant  _ something. So I’s figured two things were gonna happen.  _ One,  _ you’re fulla shit, which I just said you’re  _ not,  _ soo.  _ Two, you’re fulla  _ **_shit!_ ** Which uh, again, we debunked. Turns out we were  _ both  _ wrong and that  _ you.  _ Were just a late bloomer.”

Toriel felt that maybe her eyes lowered a little to squint at him? Maybe, she wasn’t really sure. Brainz clicked his tongue and shrugged.

“Hey, can happen to anybody: don’t feel bad…  _ well.  _ Course ya feel bad, you’ve never felt worse in your entire life- don’t try to correct me we both know I’m right- but uh, yeah.  _ You.  _ Have just spent the past.  _ Eerieuuhm-  _ I don’t have a watch so I dunno- minutes screaming about how you have  _ absolutely  _ nothing to live for and  _ no reason  _ to keep on going and all that stuff.”

First thought, she was saying all of these things out loud? Second thought, when did she start doing this? Assumedly  _ after  _ the revelation about torturing this man through time. 

Brainz folded his arms and nodded.

“Yeah you said all that out loud, and I mean  _ loud  _ like my  _ ears _ still hurt. I’ve fired so many guns without ear protection that I’m losing my  _ hearing  _ and you still hurt me. But don’t sweat it, point is you said  _ all those things  _ and guess what?  **You’re wrong.”**

She made  _ some  _ kind of face at him, probably. Brainz seemed happy with it and nodded again.

“That’s right, you’re _wrong!_ You _do_ got a reason to exist still: _Me!”_

He held up his thumb and pressed it into his chest.

“Granted it’s a real  _ shitty  _ reason but  _ you’re still here.  _ And before you feel  _ bad-  _ which don’t worry, how you feel now will be like  _ nothing  _ in the future. Like you’ll be able to shrug stuff like this  _ off. _ \- anyway, before you feel bad:  _ don’t.  _ I got the same shit wrong, too. You didn’t do anything different from me. In fact, you just cheated off of my answers so we’re  _ both  _ wrong… uhh here, lemme help you with that.”

Brainz took the liberty of snatching the cigarette butt from Toriel’s mouth before it burned up inside of it. He ended up tossing both butts over his shoulder, not paying them any further attention. 

“ _ Anyway…” _ _  
_   
He sighed and put away his friendly voice and face. He just started glaring at her with his tired eyes. Anything he said was done in a monotonous drone.

“Toriel I’m just gonna stop trying to bullshit you. You right now- you just had the biggest fall of your life, I don’t care what happened to you before: you’ve never been here before.  _ This.  _ Is  _ rock bottom.  _ You wanna be close to me-.”

He shook his head slowly.

“-this is as  _ close  _ as you gonna get. Like I said, it  _ gets worse from here,  _ it always can, don’t forget that.  _ You.  _ Cannot fall anymore, but rock bottom can sink as much as it wants under your weight. Before you think of anything wise? You  _ can’t  _ try to pull it up and you  _ can’t  _ get out of it. Don’t feel like you’re trapped though, you got no intentions of trying to climb out anyway because like you said,  _ you got no reason to live.” _

Brainz looked away with a saddened clarity but he still spoke.

“It’s not gonna get any better either, you just sorta get used to it. Sure everything is still gonna hurt you and you’re gonna feel bad because you’re still  _ you.  _ But eventually you’ll remember it doesn’t really matter.”

He looked back to her and squinted one eye skeptically.

“You ever think I don’t feel bad I basically fucked everyone over just by  _ existing  _ down here? Of  _ course  _ I do. I already had my freakouts and I’ll probably have another breakdown soon, but really what is all that gonna do to fix it? Nothin, i'll tell ya. Nothing. We are  _ fucked.  _ We have never been more fucked than we are now and it’s  _ all my fault. _ What’m I gonna do about it?  _ Nothin.  _ I still feel  _ bad,  _ never  _ won’t.  _ S’matter of fact, I still feel  _ horrible  _ about things that are petty to what’s going on now. About this one person I fucked up to save my own skin… Still bothers me.”

Brainz sat back a little more just so he could loosen one of his pockets to retrieve something from it. 

“And, you know what  _ I  _ know I should do? I’ll give you a hint, I should have done this a long  _ time  _ ago.”

He pulled out his gun and put it under his chin, feigning a smile and upbeat tone.

“ _ That’s right! _ Kill myself!  _ I.  _ Should. Kill myself. Not a day or really a  _ minute  _ goes by that I  _ don’t  _ want to kill myself. Like it would be better for  _ everyone  _ if I just pulled this trigger right now.”   
  


Toriel twitched, Brainz knew where to go with that reaction and put the gun away while holding out his palm.

“But  _ I won’t.  _ I won't. And don’t feel bad you didn’t freak out or slap this out of my hand. You’re still coming back from being an emotionless  _ zombie  _ after crying your inside out. You’ll be back.  _ Anyway,  _ I am not going to kill myself now for the  _ same  _ reason I couldn’t do it the  _ first time  _ I ever put a gun to my head-  _ uh second time.  _ First time was because I ran outta ammo, I  _ totally  _ would’ve otherwise.” 

Story time. Brainz was going to share with her something probably horrific that she already vaguely knew but could not put a claw to it. He had the perfect lack of joy or energy to share it with too. 

“My lowest point had to be four months after I broke out of jail, so this would have to beee… sometime in 2005 I think? I can’t really remember. They say on traumatic events, you remember just about everything  _ normal _ about that day? They’re lying,  _ anyway.  _ I was doing odd jobs for the people I was with, the ones who broke me out? It was a weird time for me, I mean I had just been ‘ _ born’  _ after all so y’know. I was still just blindly angry and bitter, didn’t care what I did or who I did it to, I always found some way to make you deserve it. 

Anyway, one night I get asked to do something  _ ‘special’.  _ My boss hands me a package and tells me an address and that he wants me to plant it there. Pretty weird considering my normal was slaughtering people who opposed us, but  _ ok  _ whatever. It was my  _ job  _ and I didn’t ask questions, I wait till it’s dark and I pull up two blocks away and walk the rest to this house. No lights on, no cars in the driveway, no signs of life,  _ ‘Waste of time’  _ I thought.”

Brainz paused to take a pitiful sounding breath. He seemed to have difficulty carrying on and would hear the first words come out of Toriel’s mouth since her break. 

“What. Happened next.”

It was more like her mouth became alive before the rest of her face did, but Brainz was “touched” enough that he found the strength to finish even if he looked uncomfortable. 

“ _ Well.  _ I admit thinking there was nobody there, I got complacent. I was impatient already and I wasn’t really careful because I thought nobody was  _ home.” _

He paused again and Toriel was able to look anxious again. Brainz swallowed hard and resumed, starting with a solemn head shake.

“They weren’t  _ gone,  _ Toriel. Their car just wasn’t there because the driveway had just been tarred… they were parked across the _ street _ . I didn’t see it in the dark.”

“What happened next, Brainz?”

Brainz started shaking his head again, not out of denial but just because he couldn’t say it yet. She was able to pick up on his behavior now, and could tell he was having an extremely difficult time, it wasn’t until he said this comment-

“You’re gonna be the only soul besides mine that’s gonna this, Toriel.”

* * *

-that she could realize he was doing all this for her. In a minute, the ability to love him would come back as would the great restraint not to show it for his sake. Brainz eventually did speak, but he did more than that now. He began to build the memory all around Toriel. Her walls and floors shifted and changed while furniture budded from the ground like flowers. In paragraphs, Toriel was sitting in the middle of a dark living room only illuminated by the glow of the moon. Somewhere a clock could be heard ticking through the space. 

She had a moment alone to take in the setting. There were couches sitting atop a big rug and bookshelves filled with everything  _ but  _ books. It was normally too dark to make anything out, but the room would come to life briefly as a bright white light occasionally passed through the windows on one side. 

“Cars-.”

She heard Brainz’s voice.

“Every time a car came by, their headlights came through the windows.”

Then came the footsteps, they condoned themselves as if nothing was wrong: just the sound of someone walking in from the back. The light from another car filled the room and Toriel was able to turn around and see the red eye glistening in it for just a moment. Brainz still resembled who he used to be, age had not fully taken to his face yet. He was wearing a black hoodie and equally dark pants. Without the passing lights from outside, he was no more than a mass of black in the shape of a human. Even in the dark, Toriel could see his head turn directly to her.

“I got in through their backdoor, it was an easy pick and I didn’t think much of it. I could have saved myself the trouble even then and kicked the door in but the neighbors probably would have heard me. Then again, I was only there to drop off a package so I woulda been able to leave before anybody kicked up a fuss.” 

She watched the younger man slink through the house, looking for a place to drop off his package. He wasn’t particularly agile and bumped into things as he made his way around. Eventually, the living room was not able to satisfy him, so he made his way into the next. It was a  _ kitchen _ with a checkerboard of a tiled floor. There was more twilight making its way into this room, Toriel could see Brainz’s face when he turned to speak to her again. While he was young, it was the weariest she had ever seen his face.

“You see this kitchen? I have ended up in this room  _ more  _ times than I can remember, every time I close my eyes I end up here. Every place I end up in, every floor I walk upon eventually becomes a checkerboard.”

Brainz squinted at her and now whispered as soft as the night was, his eyes were almost glowing under that hood.

“You’re about to see why…” 

Without any further moment or warning, the man and Toriel heard footsteps coming from aloft. Somebody was coming down the stairs and would be looking right through the kitchen doorway as soon as they reached the bottom. Suddenly, the twilight was shunned by the flick of a lightswitch that poured harsh yellow light into the room. Standing before them was a man in nothing but a white t-shirt and boxers with a baseball bat. His gaze met with the hooded man’s, and for a moment nothing happened. It was like either side didn’t know what to do, they were frozen in place. 

Then… the yell rang out.

“ _ There’s someone in our house! Call the police!”  _

Brainz made the hooded man look over his shoulder to Toriel again.

“But somebody already  _ did.  _ The sirens were already on their way, listen…” 

He was right. In the brief calm, Toriel could hear them in the distance, getting ever so louder and closer. And speaking of closer…

“GET OUT! GET OUT!! GET THE HELL OUT!!”

The homeowner charged after the hooded man with his bat up in the air, ready to beat the life out of him. Right before it could happen though, before he brought himself close enough to strike, the man froze in mid stride. Brainz made him stop for a moment, he made the hooded man look at Toriel one last time to sigh.

“I regret this.”

Before time was allowed to pass, Toriel caught a glimpse of what he meant. The hooded man was clutching a sawed off shotgun and his finger was slowly depressing the trigger.

**_*BLAM!*_ **

It was like a lightning bolt coursed through. The entire room flashed white for the shortest moment as the thunder  _ boomed  _ through the house and far outside. The hooded man shot the homeowner point blank in the chest, he was dead instantly. The baseball bat clattered onto the floor and stopped moving long after the owner did. 

“So what?”   
Brainz spoke through the murderer holding the smoking gun.

“I’ve killed people before, why is this different?” 

Then came the feminine scream that rang from upstairs, the hooded man pumped the shotgun as soon as he heard the second set of footsteps racing down the stairs. It was a woman wearing a night robe, she saw the man soaking in his own blood on the floor before she saw the hooded one. Another scream came out, followed by a hysterical cry.

“ _ JOSEPH, NO! BABY NOO-.” _

**_*BLAMM!*_ **

Another flash of lightning, another burst of thunder, and another life claimed as the shotgun was racked again, preemptively. 

The woman collapsed beside the man, a smoking shotgun shell tumbled onto her robe.

The hooded man looked to Toriel sadly. 

This was every bit horrible and worse than Toriel could have ever imagined, yet it seemed  _ off.  _ Yes this was easily one of the worst things she had ever witnessed, Brainz murdered two innocent people in their own home, but why did this break him above everything else? 

“It wasn’t them.”

There was one final set of footsteps coming down the stairs, they were lighter and faster than the previous two. It was a child wearing dinosaur pajamas with a teddy bear clutched in his arms. 

Toriel finally managed to gasp with all the horror inside of her, the hooded man had nothing to say to  _ her.  _ The sirens were louder now, they were almost here but were already too late. Nothing would prevent the shrill cry that pierced the air.

**“** **_MOMMY! DADDY! HELP ME!”_ **

The child ran over to his dead parents and kept trying to ‘wake them up’. He didn’t know what to do, he just kept screaming for them to wake up. He begged and pleaded, the hooded man wasn’t even on his mind.

The man himself, Toriel could see his dropped jaw quivering as he watched the consequences squirm on the floor in a desperate attempt to undo what he had done.

“I didn’t know what to do, Toriel… I didn’t know. This had never.  _ Happened.  _ Before. I was.  _ Scared  _ for the first time. I just watched this child crying over his parents while their blood pools were still warm, with the sirens and the lights in the windows.”

The room began to strobe in the alternate colored lights as the sirens were now louder than the juvenile screams. Yet in the chaos, Toriel could still hear the hooded man speaking softly as his voice trembled. 

“I killed his mom and dad… he was all alone because of me. I didn’t  _ mean to do it.  _ It just happened, I couldn’t take it back.”

Horrified, absolutely horrified. That was all that could be said about Toriel. Yet she had to say something to this man, it was too clear to be overshadowed by her rampant emotions. 

“It made you think of yourself. This was just what happened to  _ you _ , but now you were the one who killed them.”

The hooded man had his head bowed down, his voice was breaking up. 

“How could I do this to a  _ kid?  _ Why did I do it? Why did I  _ do it?  _ How could I let myself do something so  _ evil?  _ I. I just  _ panicked.  _ I didn’t want him to end up like  _ me.  _ I didn’t want him to  _ suffer…” _

He made less sense at first… But then he lifted his head up and let Toriel see his face, there were tears streaming down it. 

“I’m  _ sorry…  _ I’m-I’m- I’m  _ so  _ sorry… Forgive me…”

The sirens were here, the hooded man approached the wailing child from behind and managed one long and quivering breath as he slowly aimed the shotgun down. 

“It’s going to b-be o- _ kaay.  _ It’s all j-j-ust a  **bad. Dream…”**

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uhhh this one turned out *really* long and uh, a good chunk of the end there was thought of and written AFTER my bedtime.


	32. 09

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When it comes to figuring out what's wrong,  
> sometimes there are no answers.
> 
> But that's okay,  
> your feelings matter more. 
> 
> So did his...

Having reached the apogee of despair, the recreated world dissociated back to nothingness. This lucid dream of a memory ceased not with a silenced cry or the roar of thunder, but instead a single word that brought Toriel back to reality. 

“Blam…” 

The tired and withered face that looked into held all the dismay and heartbreak as the one shrouded by hood showed. Of course it was only present as a world of self resentment now, as age and bitterness cooled it all down. Brainz hadn’t any tears to show here, it was as if he hadn’t shed any since that day. 

The poison released from Toriel’s broken spirit still suppressed everything she felt, but a part of her still lit up. The tale was so traumatic that whatever it incited in her was strong enough to seep through the clouds. Toriel felt it enough that her claws slowly cupped over her muzzle even though her expression remained neutral. 

“You did it.”

It did not come out as a question for Brainz to answer ‘Yea or Nay’, it was only the most basic sense of comprehension for something that felt like it had just happened. 

Brainz didn’t even nod or shake his head anymore. He could not emphasize or spare any emotion for this. He spoke like he was in a daze, muttering at a single volume and tone while his eyes focused on nothing. 

“I did. I killed him. Shot him in the back of the head… But the only thing I could remember was the sirens and the lights, that tiled floor… and the crying.”

He only did a slow and solemn blink before clearing his throat.

“That was it. I had to learn about everything else; through the paper, the TV, or just people talkin about it. It was everywhere, whole state,  _ country _ was talkin about it. They said it was the most ‘cruel’ and ‘heinous’ thing they’d ever had to see. The killer came in and murdered that family in cold blood, they couldn’t find no reasons, no motives, no nothing  _ stolen _ for a botched robbery, no nothin.”

Those glazed and traumatized eyes of his found their way back to Toriel, for Brainz’s thoughts included her again.

“They said I was a  **monster** , that only a true  _ monster _ could have done something like this…”

And they drifted off again. 

“I hadn’t. Been called that name. Since the sentencing. And they were calling me a monster.” 

“Oh my  _ god…”  _

The clouds were dissipating, her reactions were becoming more truthful. Toriel was beginning to tell that this was  _ appalling,  _ yet none of the dismay she would feel was meant to be pointed at Brainz. There would only be pity, every reacquired ounce of it she could feel. 

He continued, distancing himself as much as he could.

“So that’s.  _ That.  _ I came around the next day or so, in one of our hideouts. Guys there told me I just walked in, sat down in my cot and ‘turned off’. I was catatonic until someone slapped a newspaper down in front of me. (Ap)Parently I slipped away and drove off even before the cops could close around. They never found the car either, I must have dunked it or disposed of it somehow because we never found it either. It was stolen anyway, but. Everything else I had was gone, probably with it. Walked in with nothing but the clothes on my back. I  _ did  _ however leave one thing behind at the scene of the crime, it wasn’t the package either; tell you about it in a second, that’s probably one of the ‘best’ parts.”

At this point Toriel was aware that she had been bawling before, and that she should have probably been crying to some degree now. She did not, as painful as the story was. Her stolen recollections had nothing on what she was being told, so this was very new and needed not to dull itself through any tolerance to strike her. She just didn’t feel like crying right now, it had already been done enough. She would be far more familiar with the next part of the story though. 

“It was the first thing I saw on that newspaper, biggest picture on the front page. They couldn’t show the bodies of course, so they showed a photo of the next best thing. On the wall of the living room where the killings happened, the monster had decided to do one last thing before he slipped away into the night. He wanted to leave a message behind for everybody to see.”

Brainz spoke his words and brought Toriel back again for a fleeting glimpse of the screaming world strobing in red and blue. She could see him dipping his fingers into the gleaming blood and painting the first letter with an uninterrupted stroke. He was done with the first word in the attorney’s bloodied bedroom, the second one was completed in the sickly glow on the remaining fluorescent light in the parking garage, and Brainz painted his last letter on the only wall that stood in the ruined MTT resort. 

“You wrote the phrase, ‘BRAINZ WASN’T HERE’.”

“Yes. At least- that’s what they  _ found.  _ So I must have done it.” 

Those three persistent words had provoked a question from the very instance of the phrase she witnessed herself, and somehow Toriel assumed then that she would never be given the answer. First it was because she would never see him again and then it was for the fact that there would never be a good time to ask. Suddenly she was recognizing the  _ best  _ time to ask and the  _ only  _ time quickly expiring. She had the opportunity to ask him the meaning of one of his most  _ infamous  _ properties, to learn something she was completely in the dark about even after experiencing all these memories. This was going to give her an  _ answer,  _ and perhaps the  _ last answer  _ she would need to know  **_everything_ ** about Brainz. If Toriel was anywhere else but here and feeling  _ any  _ bit more like herself; she would have asked him that question in a heartbeat,  **but she didn’t…**

Instead, Toriel asked about how he felt.

“What makes you feel you have to do this?” 

The last of the clouds inside of her mind parted away the moment Brainz looked to her without so much as a  _ second  _ to think or hesitate. He would tell her something that made every bit of knowledge she absorbed from him feel  _ useless.  _ All the distance he had put from himself to protect from his memory was gone. Brainz spoke to Toriel in a more genuine tone than he had  _ ever  _ let himself project since he changed his name.

“I don’t know, I’ve never actually been  _ able  _ to know. Everybody’s always tried to come up with a  _ reason _ but I’ve never been able to figure it out,  _ myself. _ The police thought that this was my calling card, like it was my way of taking credit for my ‘work’.  _ No,  _ not really, because that would mean I have to be  _ proud  _ of what I’ve done. And I can’t feel anything but  _ shame.  _ Some doctors and detectives said it was my way of saying ‘Sorry’ for what I  _ did…  _ but that would be a really half-assed ‘Sorry’ if you ask me and… God, I don’t even know how I could even  _ begin  _ to say how sorry I am- What I said with  _ you  _ wasn’t enough for God’s sake-.”

He was shaking his head so much, denying these assumptions so willfully. Everytime he did so, Toriel’s clarity was growing so much more than it had ever been. 

“-And, this one guy on TV? He said it was like me calling for  _ help.  _ Like  _ who does that?!  _ How would killing people and writing that even  _ do that?  _ Some guys thought I was being  _ serious  _ with it, like the cops would read it and go ‘Oh damn, guess it wasn’t  _ him’ _ . And  _ some  _ guys thought it was me trying to like  _ punish myself  _ or something by letting the cops know where I am or that they’re on the right path! I mean  **_maybe_ ** that’s what I was trying to do? I don’t  _ know!  _ I must have had  _ some _ kind of  _ reason  _ to write it on their wall when I knew the cops were gonna bust in at  _ any moment!  _ It had to be something  _ really important _ so… I just. Feel like I  _ gotta  _ do it now.”

Brainz came to a stop with a rather necessary sigh as this rather  _ cathartic  _ release took the air from him. He couldn’t speak  _ fast enough  _ to get this out there and with how high his voice climbed from sheer  _ exasperation  _ showed how much he  _ hated  _ what he spoke of. If this wasn’t enough to prove that; Brainz balanced an arm to support his head and shook it one more time before scoffing.

“It’s so fucking  _ stupid.  _ It’s like the most infamous thing about me and I can’t even tell you what it  _ means.  _ Makes me feel really stupid, more stupid than I already am.”

With that said, Brainz slumped over and crossed his arms with such a pout on his face. He didn’t direct it at Toriel but he wanted her so badly to notice that she could see him making quick glances and further scrunching his face when she didn’t react. It was rather juvenile but it was the only way he could express how bad he felt. In a rather awkward way, it made Toriel want to smile a little bit, remembering someone else who liked to do that. The attitude was spot on, yet they never wanted to discuss how they felt… Then Toriel realized that Brainz had just openly and  _ truthfully  _ shared his feelings with her for the first time… But it was more than that, what he told her was  _ not  _ the answer to her one question, but the reason why none of them would ever be answered.

At this very moment of occurrence: on the hard and soiled floor, “Rock Bottom” became the best thing that could have happened to Toriel. It started with a vivid light that traveled all this way down to reach her. She looked, she saw it, and then Toriel Dreemurr was no longer in the dark. Until now, she was blind and fumbled her every move; not because of the dark overcast that burdened her thoughts, as this enlightenment had never been impeded by them. The light was always there for her but Toriel could not see it simply because her eyes had been closed this entire time. But now they were open and could see the  _ real  _ world that beckoned her to step out from the one that held her in the dark. Before she could do just that, Toriel had to look back with her new clarity and see the false world for what it really was; a world that  _ she  _ created, the one with all the  _ “answers”.  _

* * *

Answers were how her world worked; everything in her world had answers to them, they  _ had  _ to. The only way Toriel could deal with anything was to  _ find  _ those answers and act accordingly. This made sure everything she did was right, any ‘mistakes’ she made were simply because she wasn’t given enough  _ answers  _ in the end. All of her affairs of personal and professional nature fell into this system. The cracks appeared when everything went wrong the first time, it left Toriel without “Why did this happen?” and “Why is he doing this?”. She would spend the next twenty years in deadlock, lonesome but the company of her few unanswered questions. Then Brainz fell down and added a hundred more questions to Toriel’s queue, all before he even opened his mouth… There were a thousand when the doors slammed shut behind him,  _ ten- _ thousand when they shut behind Pailurn and Mordegrid. 

Then Toriel walked to her terrible fate and fell not too far from where Brainz crawled to his demise, yet her death did not bring forth the arrant end to her inquisitions. As Toriel inherently persisted, so did her questions. An unforeseen kind of peculiarity spawned the illusion of  _ purpose  _ in her pseudo-existence within the Red Hell and all its warped rooms. The silver lining that she could finally gain her answers became her sole explanation for why she still was, as well as the dream of becoming the very nothingness that trapped her when she was finished. 

Her search for what were now  _ theoretical  _ answers commenced, and it brought her to the imaginary brink of the cosmic horrors that waited to be experienced again. Through the strife of living through another’s, Toriel had weathered everything that had been dealt to the soul until she halted in the conclusion of the final kafkaesque vision. The lights had gone out as no more could be shown, the search was over and it was time to wrap up. Toriel would impose upon herself the last question of, “What has this all told me of the actions I should have done?” 

She struggled with that question all the way out from her death and  _ all  _ the way down to Rock Bottom. Only now did she have the answer and ironically… it wasn’t  _ given _ to her, she came up with it herself. What did all of the chaos and misery tell her about what she had to do now? 

**NOTHING.**

**Not** **_one goddamned thing._ **

There  _ were  _ answers inside of Brainz, alright: causes for his battered appearance, dampeners for the sting of his mistrust, fissure for his nightmares to seep in, the attachment to guns, his near non existent threshold for violence, the reason why he was wearing the Delta rune on his back…  **but not the reason why he** **_put it_ ** **on his back.**

The past had told her in the definite meaning she craved why these things happened to Brainz, but it told Toriel  _ nothing  _ of the same certainty about why  _ Brainz  _ did these things. It didn’t make any sense, it wasn’t supposed to be like this; these were supposed to be the causes of his behavior, the  _ keys  _ to his condition,  _ the answer on how to SAVE this lost soul.  _ All she had really been given were more reasons she  _ had  _ to save him, not  _ how.  _ She was no better now at saving Brainz than the  _ ignorant  _ wretch who cast him away in this very same house. 

She failed him before and she was doomed to fail him again…  _ that’s  _ what sent her down here, realizing that she was never going to do the right thing with Brainz. All the worlds of pain Toriel inflicted upon him… and she wasn’t going to get better no matter how hard she tried. All of this, because she couldn’t get an answer out of Brainz… 

Toriel couldn’t even get him to tell her the answer behind that message of his. But what Brainz told Toriel instead, was that he didn’t  _ have  _ the answer. He said it, himself: he didn’t know why he did it, but he  _ felt _ like he had to do it. He only knew what he felt about it, that was it. Toriel was never going to get her answer…  _ because it didn’t  _ **_exist._ **

Of course Toriel was going to fail in finding the answers to save Brainz:  _ her  _ world assumed they were there and demanded they be found… but it was a lie. It was a lie Toriel let fool her for so long, bending and twisting the reality outside until it made sense to her. The outside world had hurt her with its chaos and uncertainty, but  _ inside  _ was safe and  _ ordered _ just like everything used to be. Every time something hurt her, she would retreat and sink further into her world. Eventually she couldn’t see the real one anymore.

**What?** **_This_ ** **is your world now.**

* * *

  
  


The children before Brainz didn’t leave because it wouldn’t be right to keep them here, they wanted to go home because Toriel didn’t make  _ hers _ good enough. Everything she thought of adding to make them want to stay would work, she just had to keep giving them  _ more.  _ She actually believed if she finished plumbing the bathroom, that it would be enough finally. The answer to losing her children. If that turned out to be a lie… she would just wait until she thought of another ‘answer’.

* * *

Then came Brainz; he perplexed her, he  _ hurt  _ her, he  **broke** her. He came down here bearing his own depraved reality which  _ itself  _ brought forth things so twisted and perverted that Toriel could not even begin to bend them towards something rational. Brainz injected Toriel’s world with the very chaos it existed to repel. It was  _ inside  _ now and was quickly spreading yet Toriel only attempted to ignore the glaring red cracks in the walls. To be fair… she held out on her own for a long while. It was an impressive feat considering she maintained it even while looking directly into the heart of the tumult; such lengths she went to to  _ lie  _ and let herself be deceived. It was no wonder Pailurn gulled her so easily, he saw her vulnerability through the cracks in her protection and he struck without mercy.  **She wanted answers, he** **_gave her_ ** **answers, Toriel was so desperate for them that she blindly took them in. Look what they did, look what** **_she_ ** **did. Look how many lives were snuffed out because of her… All for doing the “** **_RIGHT”_ ** **thing.**

[I am finally here for you...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTsXPRyZvEI)

No more. 

No more hiding, no more lying, no more answers.

It was time to leave her decrepit little world, as all she could see of it now were the holes and the light that beamed through them. Besides… it was redundant now; Toriel was at Rock Bottom, there was nothing left to protect her from. Nevermore to eschew from the chaos outside, for Toriel was sitting beside the child who impregnated her with it. The child without answers; the child who acted out of emotion and nothing more, the child who needed her just as much as she needed him, the child that Toriel was  _ finally  _ equipped to care for. 

She glanced up and caught what was perhaps her very first unbiased look at Brainz, one that did not encourage personal want. Brainz had deviated from his display of self derision in favor of pensively gazing down at the floor and seeing through its bare surface, as if his entire world lay beneath. While Toriel could see not what Brainz could have, she saw how it made him feel; regret and anger dominated every inch of his past while fear and the feeling of being hopelessly lost skewed how his future looked to him. 

These virulent things eventually collided with one another and in their unison, they started a fire,  **_hatred._ ** The fire used Brainz’s life as fuel to grow and it destroyed everything it touched, only producing toxic clouds of bitterness. The sole thing that kept this malicious blaze from consuming him until he was no more was a lid that came down with titanic force that receded the flames back to their origin. The lid was formed from the depression that covered every part of him, and the force that held it down was  _ guilt.  _ These things did everything they could to smother the hateful fire but no matter how strong the sadness or guilt became, the tiny flame  _ refused  _ to go out. While it was ravenous to destroy lives, what gave it the ability to persist also did the same for his SOUL:  **_determination._ ** As long as Brainz existed, the red flame would burn… waiting for its chance to grow again, for someone to push the lid off and bring all that flammable misery to its catalysing touch. 

The lid always found its way back with a heavier load of guilt to hold it down, but this would be while the explosion was still echoing and the blood on the hands still fresh. The last time the lid fell off, the fire ate Toriel and everyone else in the hall decorated with runes. The stinging memory of the bloodbath caused Toriel to fear herself for the wickedness that crept from her, of course she was aware of this erroneous disposition now; solely placing the blame on herself would also force the culpability onto Brainz for the things far beyond his control. He did everything he could to keep the fire from spreading, those who undermined his efforts were ignorant to what they would unleash… all were punished. 

So, this is what Toriel needed to attend to; a raging fire that threatened to destroy everything and everyone, and the CORE blowing up at any moment. The variables of the military hunting them down fell somewhere under these two things… But not before the existential paradox that all of this had occurred an indeterminate amount of times prior to her realization, theoretically that was the top priority but it also did not threaten spontaneous yet immediate destruction… at least, Toriel was not aware if it did. 

Here and now though, Toriel was getting acquainted with her new way of thinking. Reconsidering everything in this short span of time produced the proposal for her first course of action; she wanted very much to give Brainz a hug. It was needless to say that she wasn’t going to do that right now as Brainz would not appreciate it. He was going to pick back up his discussion and progress to the point and reason he started it, mainly his motivation for carrying on which was obviously his vengeance against Pailurn. It was best not to cut him off, the hug was  _ going  _ to happen though, there was no doubt about that. When she would get her arms around him, the earliest Toriel would let go would be a week later… perhaps two. 

Brainz cleared his throat and tried to do the same with the brooding mood in the air. 

“Anyways, after that night, I got low. I got  _ real  _ low, lowest I’d ever been. I thought, ‘What would ever make this okay?’ and I realized there was nothing. There was no good in me left.”

He had her full attention at this point but Brainz felt the need to reaffirm it and then strain a whisper as far as it could go. 

“Toriel, I put a gun to the back of the head of not one but  _ two  _ children-.”

Brainz emphasized with all the seriousness he wanted, he held up two skewed fingers with his bad hand… it would become “Two and a half” fingers in just a moment. 

“- but I killed three children, not two,  _ three.  _ I killed  _ three children,  _ Toriel. I didn’t directly  _ execute  _ the one, but I  _ know in my heart  _ they’re gone because of me.  **_Three children,_ ** Toriel…  _ Three.” _

The partially amputated part of Brainz’s hand caused Toriel to blanch internally. It was so apt for reasons Brainz didn’t know that it made it  _ sickeningly  _ appropriate that he was only  _ half right  _ about the child represented by that deformed digit. Toriel was already back to feeling restless with doubt. She  _ had to tell him the truth,  _ she was  _ going to  _ tell him but the mystery was,  **_when?_ ** When would sharing something that would turn out to be as painful as losing that finger be appropriate? The longer the fear of upsetting him kept her from talking, the more Brainz would  _ become upset  _ out of the fact she knew and withheld this information. 

She was still in Rock Bottom after all,she was supposed to feel this terrible. Right now, she had to let him finish; Brainz already helped her all he could with this speech, all Toriel had to do was focus on  _ not  _ interrupting him. 

“After I thought about all that, saw more and more things calling me a monster? That done it. I put a lot of guns in my mouth, tasted over a dozen different kind of barrels. I tried on a bunch of nooses, got good at tying em, too. Tried to nap on a couple of train tracks-  _ heh-.” _

He briefly grinned at something and suddenly produced the hand grenade from his pocket. 

“- I even pulled the pin on one-a these over a hundred times, put it right to my chest and held it there… But I could never get myself to let go. No matter how many times I tried, no matter how much I wanted to,  _ I couldn’t do it.”  _

_ He  _ couldn’t do it?  **_She_ ** couldn’t do it, Toriel could keep her mouth shut no longer. A repressed whine built up inside of her and broke out before Brainz could open his mouth again. 

“ _ But you  _ **_did!”_ **

The blurt out caused him to stall, only reacting with a confused noise.

“ _ Hehh?”  _

There was no stopping it now, all Toriel could do was slow her wording enough to be understandable. 

“I’m sorry, but you  _ did  _ commit suicide. You commited suicide  _ many times  _ by now! And you have died an even  _ greater  _ amount of times!”

That did  _ not  _ feel good at all letting it out, Toriel nearly covered her mouth as she stared in quick anticipation for what Brainz would say. It did not make her feel better seeing him squint and scrunch his face.

“The’ell are you talking about? I’m sitting right here and  _ talking to you.  _ You kinda have to be  _ alive  _ for that.” 

He wasn’t understanding her, and it didn’t help that Toriel had simultaneously  _ too  _ much information to share for the moment and also not  _ enough  _ information to understand what the hell she was talking about,  _ herself.  _ She had to rely on grasping for things already established. 

“Remember. What I told you? The things that happened before? We both perished. It is  _ that.  _ It is  _ more  _ than that, it has happened more than once.”

Brainz blew a long snort from his nose as his eyebrows flattened alongside his voice. 

“ _ Ohhh,  _ I see. We’re going back to  _ that  _ story, ok. That’s what this is about,  _ neat.” _

If the sarcasm didn’t say he was dubious, the click of his tongue before he pushed himself up from the floor said he was agitated. Of course these things did not compare to what he actually said as he got up. 

“Y’know, I did all this to  _ help you?  _ I sit down and I  _ put myself out on the line _ to make ya feel better about yourself,  _ aand  _ you’re give’n me this shit again.  _ That’s real nice, Toriel.”  _

The thing was, Toriel could tell that Brainz didn’t think she was making this up at all. He had a weaker comprehension of it than she did, but the thought of it bothered him so much that he resorted to discarding it and projecting anger. She was not going to let this slide, they had fought with each other for long enough. Instead of panicking or falling into those hysterics, Toriel merely raised her voice and followed Brainz with her head. 

“You  _ know  _ I am not lying to you. I have yet to understand this anomaly myself, but you have lived and lost  _ many lives  _ which the memories of you have not retained, but your SOUL has. I see morsels of your past lives with no relation to my desire and I have seen how they all ceased down here.”

Brainz made a rather patronizing grunt that was prolonged by him stretching his arms. 

“Oh, but of  _ course  _ you have: in the land where you get fucked existentially through time and space. And to think books we pitched to children had magic  _ all wrong!” _

Her voice grew louder and her tone more assertive, a correction was crafted. 

“This is  _ not  _ exclusive to the Underground! This has affected you  _ long  _ before you fell down! I believe that  _ every  _ memory you possess of your acclaimed ‘failure’ to end your life will pair with a life where you  _ did!  _ And  _ somehow _ , through some means, this has shaped what you have become in the  _ present! _ ”

Was Toriel going to wait for what he had to say next? No, she wasn’t. Not without providing him with proof by finding an impossible silver lining. 

“ _ This  _ is why you are afraid of electricity!” 

Toriel already knew she would regret saying that, she smelled the burnt hair before she even made a noise. A shiver ran through her being too, the fear was secondhand for her. 

Brainz stopped in his tracks, he was ramping up to dig in his heels but now he lost all of his momentum. He wasn’t nearly as defensive in his retort, taken too off guard. His facial expression defaulted and he had to stutter a bit before speaking competently. 

“I-I’m not-.”

He had to shake his head too or else his response risked sounding like a question, he sounded so very unsure of himself.

“-I’m not afraid of electricity(?).” 

She did not need to answer him back because he heard what he sounded like too. All Toriel had to do was give him a look sharp enough to peel through his layers and coax him to spill forth his secrets… She came up with the face a long time ago and it always worked. This would be no exception, Brainz’s nervous body movements gave him away.  _ Now  _ he got defensive, crafting a justification that would fool nobody from how high his voice went.

“I’m- I’m  **_not!_ ** You know what it is? I am afraid of  **_dying_ ** from electricity, that’s it! I just do not wish to  **_DIE_ ** from electrocution. I think that’s normal for  **_everybody_ ** not to want to die!  _ Especially  _ not in a way that’s as  _ slow  _ as it is  **_painful!_ ** You  **_literally_ ** **COOK** from the inside out! Every inch of you screams in pain and then your  _ skin  _ starts to melt! I dunno about you, but that’s a  _ really good thing to be afraid of!”  _

Now how would he know something as descriptive as that unless he experienced it himself? This was the worst scenario to utilize but it did what Toriel needed it to do. Thankfully, Brainz had no solid recollections… but the same could not be said about the feelings. Toriel was primed to ask Brainz the exact same question while knowing it lacked an answer, his contradictory confusion would be a step in the right direction. This would have worked in Toriel’s favor… if an abrupt sensation hadn’t caused her to freeze up halfway through that response. 

“Hey, what’s the matter?” 

He noticed pretty quickly and basically forgot what he was talking about in favor of looking suspicious.

She had felt a ‘tingle’ of sorts coming from a place far beyond where her limbs reached, a part of her had been upset by something. The enchantment she placed on the snare trap had been triggered.

“The  _ trap, _ somebody is here.”

This was all she could say, bolstered with all the seriousness it warranted. Brainz’s eyes widened as he was taken aback.

“Oh shit, really?  _ Oh ok!  _ Okok…”

Brainz paced exactly one time, his instincts warming up again. 

“Ah fuck.  _ Fuckfuckfuck- _ Alright!”

He suddenly swerved himself around the table where he had slumbered and retrieved the rifle that had fallen over, replacing the sling over his shoulder and snatching his flashlight in the same motion. 

Toriel started trying to restart her footing as well but was halted by Brainz’s hand depressing her shoulder. He tried to coax her back to the floor.

“No no, not you. You stay here, you’re still getting your marbles back.”

This proposal was not acceptable in the slightest. 

“What? I am not letting you go alone, I have to help you!”

Both of them were privy to the fact that they hadn’t the time to argue about this, but Brainz would not relent. He shook his head and free hand quite willfully.

“ _ No no no!  _ You just had the worst fall of your life and you’re seeing everything different now, it took me a  _ month _ before I was capable of doing anything. You need to sit down and take it  _ easy.” _

“ _ Brainz,  _ I am completely capable and I  _ will not _ stay here and let you run off into danger! I told you I can not bear to let that happen  _ again!” _

Brainz managed a rushed scoff and then tilted his head.

“I’m  _ not  _ going out there!”

This took her off guard, leaving Toriel open to whatever he was going to say next. Brainz eased his voice to explain rather than to argue.

“Look,  _ all I’m gonna do _ is  **_check._ ** I’m just gonna go to the door and check to see how many are there, I’m not gonna  _ open it _ , I’m not gonna make a  _ sound.  _ I am just going to check and then I’m gonna come  _ right back here  _ and letchu know what’s up. That’s it,  _ got it?” _

  
She did, but still did not like his idea at all. Toriel managed a concerned kind of whine.

“But  _ Brainz,  _ why do you not wish for me to help you?”

He grimaced slightly but shook his head once more with eyes pressed shut.

“It’s not  _ that. I.  _ Just don’t want you going there potentially  _ out of it  _ and getting hurt because I couldn’t defend you good enough.  _ Please, Toriel.  _ Just stay here, I will be  _ right back.” _

Brainz was doing a good job reminding Toriel of someone very close to him who pleaded for a person or two to stay in this home, but then he went beyond what she did and gently massaged one of her ears while looking her in the eyes.

“ **_I promise. Ok? I will be fine.”_ **

“Oh. Oh-okay. Be  _ careful  _ then, B-Brainz… I care about you  _ so much.” _

He just nodded like he had no choice and straightened himself out. 

“Yeah, I know. Aight, I’ll be right back.”

The flashlight was clicked on and Brainz made for the stairs while trying different kinds of footing to be quick yet quiet. He must have figured it out by the time he made it to the bottom because Toriel couldn’t hear his footsteps departing.

…

What the hell just happened? Did she seriously let him go like that? Yes, yes she did. Even while on a self promise never to let the boy out of her sight and Toriel wishes him luck as he peels away. She just couldn’t tell him,  _ “No”  _ though. When he made that promise, it was he was someone else again… like a parent assuring their child everything would be OK. He made Toriel feel like a young monster again for just a moment… He  _ was  _ a parent himself at one point and in another point; he still was, just like her. 

_ Damn her _ for letting this happen. Brainz may have been right about her altered state affecting her judgement. Toriel  _ let  _ herself be persuaded by comfort and assurance just like when the king of deception spoke to her… How long had it been since Brainz left anyway, a couple of minutes? Why was this taking so long if he said he was just going to the door to listen for voices? Could he have been  _ lying  _ to her? Would he  _ do that?  _

Toriel couldn’t tell from his emotions if he  _ was _ lying to her but then again, Brainz had become so accustomed to it that it probably stirred nothing inside of him when he  _ did.  _

“Oh no…”

What if this was a lie to get his way; Brainz showed nothing but disdain and disapproval for approaching this situation non-lethally. Going alone without her voice to act as a conscience meant Brainz could do whatever he saw fit. 

_ “STUPID!”  _ Toriel felt. Would Brainz really do this to her? Was he truly this  _ selfish?  _ Or was this all to keep her from harm? Brainz was only a selfish person by circumstance but his intentions were almost  _ always  _ altruistic.  _ How the hell did Toriel come across the human who was after her own heart?  _ More importantly,  **_why the hell was he TAKING SO LONG?_ **

Against Brainz’s wishes, Toriel was up to her feet and beginning her own style of frantic pacing. What was she to do? If Brainz was lying then this had to mean he was in trouble and  _ that  _ meant that Toriel should rush to the door without another delay! But what if Brainz  _ wasn’t  _ lying and her sudden action would show only that she didn’t  _ trust  _ him? Why was trying to predict his thoughts and actions so  _ hard?  _ Things like this were the reason Toriel hid in the “Answers” world in the  _ first place.  _

Toriel’s indecision and pacing shed five more minutes of torture, she was succeptible to doubling this time when a sound from far away barely managed to reach her ears. There was an echo muffled and weakened by distance and obstruction, but the sound was very distinct;  **_gunshots._ ** There were three of them, quick enough to be frantic but with just enough delay between them for each of the shots to have been considered carefully. 

A switch was flipped inside of Toriel, all hesitation ended. She was stomping down the stairs before the echoes ceased entirely, with fire in one claw to light her way. Toriel was about to turn the corner to catch a glimpse of the empty hallway and ajar door… When the rush of air from the door slamming shut was with her along with the thunderous sound. Toriel stopped just at the brink of the corner, possessing all the mystery in the world. Then she heard a raspy yet somehow childlike voice calling down the way

“ _ Toriiiiiie?  _ I need some  _ he-elp!”  _

Toriel had a pair of emotions that contended to be picked. Both were so extreme that they wanted to solely take over her. One of them wanted her to be so relieved to hear Brainz’s voice that she would break down crying, the other one wished to show Brainz the apex of how furious a monster mother could be at him for scaring her to death. Which one won her over in the end? It turned out  _ neither  _ of them, because what she saw around the corner shocked any feeling out of her. 

First of all, Brainz did not expect to see her pop into his sight like that; he suffered a small exclamation from his surprise, but seemed happy to see her after it passed. Was she happy to see  _ him?  _ Of course she was, it was everything else that she saw that stalled her. 

**_Brainz was not alone, he brought COMPANY._ **

On the ground beside him, secured to his waist by the cable that created the snare trap, was a small yellow monster in a sweater made specifically for them. Brainz had one of his hands clenching the collar of their sweater, arresting them from trying to get away from him. In Brainz’s other hand, was a large clump of vermillion hair attached to the very blue and very motionless monster he was dragging with him. 

Brainz had two rather casual things to say to Toriel, as if nothing was wrong in the world.

“Sorry about that, I had a bit of a sidetrack.”

She answered him not and stared at everything a little more, just until Brainz flashed a little smile at her-

“Good to see you took my advice!"

-as he swayed Toriel’s attention to her own claws,  **_and the revolver clutched in one of them._ **

[You weren't thinking of using that now, were you?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkX_4HsrYXQ)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me a good and plenty long time to do,  
> it is also one of the chapters I am most unsure of for how it works out.
> 
> I will try to promise no more existential crises but with how this one got me by surprise...  
> Sorry.


	33. 08

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The foundations of all good things are made of silver linings.  
> It's just a matter of finding that glimmer in the dark: now you are ready to build something wonderful.

The details were slow to come and few in number; one way or another, Brainz left that gun behind on his temporary departure and now it was in Toriel’s possession. To think she was trying to be less afraid of herself: never mind the question of what this particular _gun_ would do, what was _she_ going to do with it? Regrettably, this was not the time to sink into passive anxiety as the instant chaos took precedence. Besides, Toriel wouldn’t be able to hear her new thoughts so well, not with all the screaming. 

Toriel hadn’t the slightest idea what was going on and the shrill shouts from the young and yellow monster insured that that would not change, at least not without a whole lot of yelling. Trying to make sense of the frantic ramblings coming from the child wasn’t going to be a successful task either. It seemed that the child was _attempting_ to speak proper words to Brainz… words that Toriel had a feeling, _were not going to be very nice._

Priorities though, the monster showing signs of life was not Toriel’s prime concern. Brainz showed no objections when Toriel bent down and lifted the still monster into her arms, he nodded and thanked her by mouthing. Toriel benefited from this too, as Brainz relieved her of the phantom weapon as she took a burden he was beginning to struggle with. 

One large and careful step over the barricades and Toriel was back home with… a monster she had never seen before in her life but felt _very_ strongly about for reasons she did not know yet. She put the unpleasant feelings with all the others and quickly checked the monster’s status… Toriel could feel nothing. Her strong feelings of unknown origin were ousted by a very familiar fear that struck her like a bullet made of ice. 

["Fallen down?"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCA30u43ifg)

She could hear the stricken words that escaped her mouth as the screams from the child still needed to travel up the stairs. Yes though, there was no escaping the utter certainty that this monster had fallen down. Toriel had seen too many of these lifeless monsters and failed too many times at reviving them, to feel anything other than the crushing bleakness that there was nothing she could do to help this one… 

The best thing Toriel could do was gently lay the poor thing down before the fireplace, atop the blanket she would flatten out first. Seeing the monster in the superior light of the fire only provided more evidence that they were gone, with the trio of bullet holes and the multitude of dusty wounds littering their body… Toriel bunched up one corner of the blanket as a makeshift pillow before she rested the head. She wasn’t sure if the marginal comfort even mattered, but that wasn’t going to stop her from providing it. Toriel felt sick once more, the sliver of hope she felt in her emergence from lies had faded and brought the constant despair right back. She would have started crying again but the strange feelings withheld any tears from her. 

What reasons did Brainz have to bring this new heartache here? Did he not know about the tragedy of fallen monsters and assumed this one to be savable? The vile thought of having to explain this sordid reality to him came to mind, complete with the image of a crestfallen look on his face. An even worse thought had its way with Toriel: what if _Brainz_ was the cause of this? Toriel did hear _three_ gunshots… **and that was enough of the senseless paranoia.** Toriel wanted so quickly and badly to do away with this toxic mindset that a sudden urge to slap herself across the muzzle came to fruition before she came to her senses. 

The only question she needed to ask was, “Where the hell is Brainz?” The impressively persistent screams said he was near but not in sight. Toriel peered from the living room and immediately found Brainz, who was at the top of the stairs but still beyond the barricade. While it wasn’t like Toriel could ask him what was holding him up, she did not need to: Brainz was having difficulty climbing over with only one arm available.

Toriel would remove the other burden from Brainz, watching him vault over the wall of furniture with far more ease employing his left arm. Now only during this handoff did the yelling and thrashing monster get their first good look at Toriel as did them. The fighting stopped, not immediately but it subsided rather quickly. Suddenly, Toriel had a child who was content with being very still and quiet… and staring at her with really wide eyes. They weren’t _utterly_ quiet though, the child merely had great difficulty overcoming bewilderment to slowly speak to her.

“ _Wha-whooah._ Who. _Are_ you?”

Well this was strange: Toriel had banked on the worst case scenario that she would be recognized, and even began to mildly torment herself with all the questions she imagined hearing. It would have made perfect sense for it to go down as such but _no,_ this monster didn’t even recognize her face. Coming from a time that such an occurrence was _impossible,_ this felt… weird to say the least. To look at a generation of monsters who didn’t know her, let alone that she even _existed…_ Feeling lonely was one thing but was being **_forgotten_ **really better than somebody remembering her? 

This was not the time to dwell on such a thing, there was another child that needed her care and especially her comfort. Toriel tried to think of something rather assuring to say but her thoughts ran out of time before the obligatory response happened: she merely smiled a rather faux smile and slipped an equally nervous and unconvincing chuckle at the monster now arrested in her arms. Realizing she wasn’t going to help herself or the child, Toriel looked to Brainz in a desperate plea for context. He picked up the cry for help and formed a point with his hand after snapping his fingers. 

“ _Aight,_ so funny thing is-.”

The yellow monster piped up again with a different library of shouts and cries to choose from, all seeming like pleas for help, and all of them directed at Toriel. In fact, they were basically _dedicated_ to her now, this child wouldn’t even acknowledge _Brainz_ anymore… save for the occasional and frantic nod towards the man, who had just planted himself in front of the fire with his back watching the fallen monster. There was something peculiar about this. A pattern was picked up when Toriel managed to decipher _two_ comprehensible words in the shouts, _coincidentally_ only being heard when the child turned away from her. 

“ **Bad guy.”**

The moment she recognized those words, another one of those ‘switches’ went off in Toriel’s head. She felt a type of strange she wasn’t supposed to be accustomed to by now, it hit her with a compulsion to give a second look at a couple of things in her home. Not everything of course, just the things that were ‘jumping at her’ like images from a popup book.

  * The bigger monster that Brainz had dragged in. Blue, scaly complexion, eyepatch, a little _young_ looking, herself actually… 
  * Yellow young’n screaming for help but also shouting those two words at Brainz as loud as they can.
  * Brainz is here, he looks _terrible._ He’s a mess of fresh dust and blood, the way he’s merely _standing_ there and looking _lost_ is the worst part. He looks to the child with concern and then grimaces at the downed monster. 
  * The fire seems to have changed, it feels hostile and overbearing… ravenous even, like it wishes to spread and consume all in its path, the fallen monster is the closest and Brainz would be in danger too if he doesn’t leave.



There was something disturbingly familiar about these experiences. Not only had they happened before but at the same time and place too… “Bad Guy” debuted there. 

  
  
  


…

Then Toriel looked down at Undyne.

“Ohh. _God.”_

She slowly turned to Brainz with a glazed look on her face caused by her mind blanking to protect itself. Brainz, looking down at the battered monster on the floor, the monster who flipped his lid while the young one watched. Brainz dragged _these_ two monsters in from the cold, all while he was _still_ covered in dust and blood. **Brainz was covered in bright red blood.**

Toriel switched her thoughts appropriately. 

“Oh my god, _Brainz,_ you’re _hurt!”_

Brainz did not understand over the screaming and only pointed to his ear with his head shaking. Toriel quickly ran through her instinctive efforts to soothe the understandably traumatized monster in her arms, but her shushes and head pats proved ineffective. With the child being inconsolable, Toriel resorted to a tactic she would never be happy with.

The ear splitting cries were suddenly made much less audible by a large fuzzy mitt covering the child’s mouth. Toriel looked down to the child, feeling sympathy and guilt.

“I am sorry, child. You need not forgive me for this.”

Forgiveness? Why give her that? She was only neglecting a very traumatized child for their Boogeyman standing right before them. Of course that _“Boogeyman”_ was actually a much more traumatized child who required much more urgent care, so Toriel couldn’t afford to waste much more time. 

A piqued snort came from across the room.

“ _Mmmmmn,_ I’d watch out if I were you, I got _bit_ when I tried that.” 

He obviously wasn’t even aware he was wounded, but the blood was further running down his slick coat. Toriel followed one of the streaks soiling Brainz’s right side up to a wine red hole in his shoulder.

“Brainz, your _arm!”_

She shouted with all the alarm and urgency she needed but Toriel wasn’t satisfied with the plea for self examination as she hadn’t any free arms to point to the wound. 

Still, Brainz was casual. He sounded utterly unconcerned and only sighed while moving his damaged appendage and wincing.

“ _Yeaahh_ I know, I think I pulled a muscle while dragging this _bitch_ -.”

The arm gestured weakly to Undyne. 

“-through the snow. Hurts like hell.” 

The muted child made a frustrated sounding attempt to speak.

A further hysterical shout was being readied but Toriel would ultimately put it away out of redundancy. When Brainz clutched his arm, the warm moisture he felt changed the look on his face. The red he saw on his hand changed his attitude.

“(What the) Am I shot- ohh, _shit!_ Am I _shot!_ Oh god, I got _shot!_ ” 

In an instant, he understood what Toriel was expressing now and found the need to excuse his ignorance as he clutched the hole in his shoulder tightly and chimed back to Toriel.

“I didn’t feel a thing! - _Ohh-_ Fuck’n _dammit!”_

There was a twinge in the boss monster, an automatic reflex triggered by a child being in the presence of profanity. She said nothing, however. 

Brainz began to come to terms with the pain he was feeling, sounding off with more guttural grunts and groans. He strained himself to look over his shoulder and exclaimed again before hastily throwing his soiled jacket off along with the rifle on his back. Toriel and the child were able to see what was left of the ill fitted sweater in full… at least until Brainz removed it as well. An incredibly filthy undershirt painted with shades of blood both red and brown was the last garment the human shed. 

“Ohh my…”

The pasty complexion dressed with scars and tattoos both grim looking did not surprise Toriel but still intimidated her, especially the mess of smearing on Brainz’s belly. The sight also had a subduing effect on the child, as their efforts to shout and move against Toriel’s arms ceased while their eyes widened again. 

“Son of a. _Bitch!”_

Brainz had looked over his shoulder again for an unobstructed examination and was not happy with what he saw. When he turned and scurried to the pile of equipment behind him, Brainz’s company would observe a much nastier looking hole on his back side. Blood freely trickled down his flesh now, rich and bright scarlet fluid that glimmered in the orange light. He bent over into a crate of miscellaneous things and began rummaging through them with his damaged arm as the other one pressed a wadded and even bloodier t-shirt against his wound. It was now that Toriel would give up her hold on the child and make for Brainz right away. 

Everything on Toriel’s mind was cleared except for the spell she was preparing, she rubbed her claws together as if to warm them up as a green glow eminanted from them. 

“Let me have your arm.”

Her assurance was taken as a _warning,_ Brainz diverted his attention to the advancing monster and he flinched seeing her arms closing in to make contact with him. He leapt backwards with a surprised grunt before Toriel could begin to heal him. He must have forgotten of her abilities, and Toriel invaded his space without permission. She had a flinch of her own but tried to resolve this miscommunication.

“Brainz, please do not be frightened! I can mend your wound for you, remember? It is alright, you do not need to worry.” 

Assuming she cleared the obstacle, Toriel walked towards Brainz again with her claws out and still aglow with green magic. There was no comfort present on Brainz’s face. He held out the arm he clutched, palm out to prevent Toriel from growing nearer. 

“ _No-no_ , it’s _fine._ You don’t gotta do that, I got this.”

Of all the things Brainz refused from Toriel, this one would make the least sense. This was not a matter of accommodation nor kindness, it was his _life_ and above all, this was _not_ going to be an argument. The best Toriel could pick up from him was his surprising amount of modesty: he seldom asked for help and regardless if he did or not, Brainz always assumed he was a burden to you. Debunking it was a gambit. 

“This is no burden to me in the _slightest sense,_ you are hurt and I can restore you in a matter of moments.”

Toriel tried to take another step, Brainz halted her effort with a sudden shout that escalated everything up a flight or two. 

“ **_No,_ ** you will _not!_ I will take care of _myself!”_

The sudden burst of this irrational behavior pricked Toriel’s heart like a splinter. Hiding how upset she was became impossible now. She tried to make one more attempt to gain Brainz’s trust… but the onset of _hurt_ got the best of her. Her pain seeped out with a quivering lip and faltering voice.

“Brainz, _do you really mistrust me,_ **_that much? Please… let me help you.”_ **

Toriel held her arms out but did not advance, her best effort to swear her benevolence to the child who direly needed it. 

For a moment, the sullen apprehensiveness fell apart: ‘Remorseful’ would be the only term close enough to describe the look on Brainz’s face. As quickly as this expression became, did Brainz quickly shake it out along with his head. He scrunched his eyes shut and turned his head away just as decisively as the bad arm he waved before him to double down on his refusal.

“Toriel, I said, **_NO!_ ** I don’t want your goddamned _magic!_ Don’t come any closer, this is your only warning.”

She could have done it. Toriel could have grabbed him right there and ended this needless heartache. Brainz would have been furious and he could have even lashed out at her, but at least he would be healed. Toriel would have been more than fine losing whatever trust she had or had not with Brainz as long as it meant he could be safe. She could have done this as Brainz stolled passed her… but she did not. Toriel did nothing but refrain; from healing Brainz against his will, and bursting into tears. 

Brainz would return to the stash and find what he was seeking. There was hesitation in his actions though, he felt the need to look back at her. 

“ _Thank you…”_

Toriel would never know if this was the right decision to make, she was certain on how much she hated it, despite making Brainz happy. She was only going to hate it more as she watched Brainz pull out a backpack with a red cross emblazoned on it. All the pits inside of Toriel sank a bit deeper when she realized the ritual Brainz was about to perform. 

There were many things the old monster did not understand when it came to humans, none of these mysteries could perturb her as much as the horrors of “First Aid”. It quickly became something that appeared so much worse as she learned more of it: she would have been better off staying completely ignorant to it… if it wasn’t for knowing why Brainz was about to _harm_ himself. Because that is how human healing worked, harm on top of harm to ensure a slow and inefficient recovery. 

She anticipated the worst, it wasn’t good enough. Toriel was already up to some of the worst anxiety she felt before Brainz even did anything to himself. Watching him retrieve the strange and unknown items for First Aid was enough to cause alarm, the smaller pouch with a picture of two crossing snakes on it made Toriel feel ill. 

Then Brainz began; he sprayed something on himself and then took a tiny folded wipe to both of the wounds. Brainz sounded off with a grunt that was only uncomfortable, and silently swore to himself. This hurt both of them, Brainz possessed all of the physical pain but this hurt Toriel in every other aspect just to watch. It was about to hurt a lot more… Brainz knew it, he hesitated on his next step: stopping himself on three attempts to move on. It was only after he let out a pair of deep and quivering breaths to prepare himself and stuffed the cleanest sleeve of his shirt between his jaws, that Brainz proceeded and poured white powder into his open back. 

The sound that Brainz made, had Toriel grabbing her ears and curling over like a child attempting to hide from a nightmare. The initial shout lasted five seconds and was not ear splitting or really far above his speaking voice. Most of the pained outburst had been caught in the back of Brainz’s throat and muffled by the fabric in his mouth, what these things did not capture nor impede, was how excruciating the pain was. Brainz’s voice strained itself until it couldn’t come through anymore, he clenched his limbs as tight as his eyelids as he slowly doubled over.

  
  


When the first one stopped, Toriel thought it was over: only because she couldn’t take another one. She was wrong again, frightened to all hell by another short lived but terribly pained grunt, followed by another, and another. In the midst of her torturous sympathy, Toriel tried to unlock herself and plea for Brainz to stop this abuse to himself: all she managed to do was catch a glimpse of him placing a cloth on his back and forcing it against a wall: the exact moment the man convulsed from another jolt of hard agony. 

The monster choked out a plaintive whimper that went unheard by Brainz because his breathing had become quite audible, every breath was saturated with exertion. All Toriel could do was wait it out, no matter how much it broke her excessively felled heart. On the next lapse in grunts and labored breaths, Toriel dared to force her eyes open. What she saw looked like a very long and bent sewing needle carrying the thinnest length of thread. There was no time to wonder why Brainz would shift to mending his clothes- because he wasn’t, he stuck that needle into himself.

He heard Toriel’s cry this time and stopped only to accost her while trying to downplay the breathing, the shuddering, and the cold sweat. 

“Hey. _Toriel-_ **relax.** I’m _f-fine-.”_ He did a painful swallow followed by another stressed exhale. “-Go help _that one_ , over _there.”_

Brainz pointed to the place where Undyne lay, with the very needle pulling the string inside of him, clutched in his blood smeared hand. He did not watch or wait for Toriel to obey him, but asked for this request again as he returned to his sordid deed.

“Help her- * _Mmuhgh*-_ not me.”

Toriel did not help because she simply could not. All she could do was watch and wince alongside Brainz as the needle passed through his tender flesh over and over again. This is what he preferred over mending his wounds in a moment without any pain, to put himself in enough pain that he could pass out. Then he’d give himself the opportunity to live with more unending pain until his method finally finished in god knew how long. Like earlier, **this hurt.** This hurt Toriel real bad. She was never going to bring this up with him though, but it wasn’t like she ever mattered… 

The last stitch forced the wound closed, Brainz had finished harming himself. He would conclude the episode of First Aid by covering his frontal wound with a large adhesive bandage and the back one as well, but not before stuffing a spongy cloth atop the first one that had turned mostly red. The bandages themselves were covered by a roll of cloth Brainz wrapped around his shoulder a good few times. 

Toriel must have looked as sick as she felt because Brainz made a much stronger effort to sound casual and assuring when he turned back to her. 

“See? All done. _All better now._ That waddn’t so bad now was it?”

That wouldn’t have fooled Toriel even if Brainz _wasn’t_ still panting and sweating from the brutal exertion, modesty compelled most of the lies he told. However, Brainz would do something else that would immediately snap her out of the debilitating heartache. Right after the little lie, Toriel saw Brainz’s face become utterly absent. She was already on her way to catch him before he started to slump over. 

Brainz did not collapse onto the floor, that was never going to happen. There was no way in hell Toriel was ever going to let him fall down, no matter how sick he made her feel. 

As for Brainz, he hadn’t completely left and was coming back around rather quickly. Toriel let Brainz lean into her even though the contact with his determined blood was painful, she would support him as long as he needed. When both of them were confident in Brainz’s balance, Toriel let him go to try a couple of steps. 

“Thanks-.”

Brainz had to pause, he was still struggling with his breathing and could only speak intermittently.

“- sorry about that. I get a little lightheaded sometime. It’s the shock. From getting hurt. It’s alright. I’m fine.” 

However fine he claimed himself to be, he wasn’t “fine” enough to turn down the dining chair Toriel was already on her way back with. 

“Thanks again. Just just. _Just gimme a minute, okay?_ I’ll be right as rain, sure thing. I just-.”

His breath outran him again, Brainz had to close his eyes and let himself wheeze for air before finishing what he wanted to say with a hushed voice.

“- _I just need a minute._ Work on uh. _Work on Undyne_ there, will ya? Before ya do though. Do me one more thing actually? Couldja hand me that sweater back? Startin to feel cold.”

The sweater? **The** **_sweater…_ ** Toriel was so overwhelmed by everything that she didn’t even notice until now: _Brainz still had it._ The first kindness Brainz truly accepted had covered him snugly the entire time, he kept it close to his heart. Toriel was already well aware that this didn’t have to matter to anybody but herself, but she couldn’t help but feel something _warm_ covering up the heartbreak. This uneven little sweater meant the world below and above to her… at least it _would have_ if it wasn’t the single most unclean article of clothing to have ever widened her eyes. And _Brainz_ wanted to put it back on, he actually wanted her to _HAND IT TO HIM!_ Never mind that this was not going to happen, Toriel had to refrain from squealing at Brainz for suggesting something so absolutely audacious… Then she felt miserable.

She had gifted him this sweater to keep him from getting cold and now he wanted it back for that _exact reason,_ Toriel could not just refuse Brainz’s need like this. But at the same time, this bloodied heap of _tatter_ had just updated her internal definition of “ **FILTHY** ” in such a way that she was never going to be able to use the term again. While the rest of Brainz’s attire were nothing short of horror stories, calling them “filthy” now would have been a _LIE,_ they were too far from comparison. 

Another inevitably bad situation, and so soon after the _last one!_ What was this poor monster to do? No answer was coming to help her so that meant Toriel was going to have to make a choice from nothing but judgement. 

**She said, “No.”**

Not only did Toriel say no, but she followed it up by telling Brainz that he was not going to wear that sweater again, because there really was no room for any shred of doubt on what she would not do. Toriel had no issue with bringing her child something to wear, she hadn’t a problem with doing all the dressing for him either, and _honestly,_ she would have been simply **_ecstatic_** to create an entire new shirt for Brainz right here and then if the time **_allowed for it._** But Toriel was NOT going to let Brainz wallow for any longer in this bastion of nastiness no matter how unhappy he would be with her. Besides, she had just _let_ Brainz “be happy” by allowing him to poke himself multiple times with a big needle. Toriel was _allowed_ to make Brainz unhappy by taking care of him now, it was only fair. 

Expectedly, Brainz wasn’t thrilled by this decision. Unexpectedly was just how he communicated how he felt about this, he merely looked at Toriel and frowned innocently.

“Why not?” 

The rather lacking “defense” would not distract the monster though, her foot was firmly planted to the ground and she went through with the retort she planned for a much stronger argument.

“It’s. **_Ruined,_ ** Brainz! Your sweater has endured _every hardship_ you have but unlike you, child, it has not _survived!_ It only _scarcely_ remains in one piece and I am unable to make out a single _speck_ of even a **_tinge_ ** of its original color beneath the _grime!_ And your _wounds,_ there are leavings from every injury you have suffered, _bound_ to the very fibers holding this garment together, the aura is **_unendurable!”_ **

Was this too much? It was in no way an exaggeration of how Toriel felt about this matter, but how was Brainz going to take to escalation? 

“I’m sorry.” 

“...What?” 

Toriel _did_ wait for Brainz to finish his sentence by specifying the sarcastic thing he was “sorry” for; something that they’d both agree was not his fault and and serve to make her feel bad for blaming him. Her floored expression only came after Toriel realized Brainz had no more to say after: “I’m sorry.”

Brainz would only further flabbergast Toriel by stooping his gaze to the ruined garment on the floor before elaborating; he did so with a miserable croak. 

“I messed up your shirt, I’m sorry. I didn’t _mean_ to.”

There was a fair bit of stuttering preceding Toriel’s proper response; most of it was from realizing that Brainz was _genuinely_ ashamed about this. Even when Toriel was capable of words, a stutter or two slipped by because she still hadn’t fully come to terms with what was happening. 

“Brainz, I- _That is not what I meant._ I am not upset that your sweater became _ruined_ . I do not want you to _wear_ it again.”

She took a step towards Brainz, knowing it would make him look up at her. Toriel needed eye contact to strengthen her point; softening her voice aided this too as it would have the opposite effect. 

“I am not upset with _you,_ sweet- **_child.”_ **

Outwardly, Toriel caught herself and made that recovery. In her thoughts, she would reprimand herself for her mistake.

‘Stop _saying_ that _name!’_

Brainz didn’t notice; that was obvious by the fact he dipped his head again and started nodding weakly.

“I know. But still, you went and did this nice thing for me, and I destroyed it.” 

“It is-.”

“That was a dickish thing to do to you. What was that? Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt you.” 

Even though she really wanted to, Toriel would not try to assure Brainz that his sudden onset of apologies was unnecessary; another familiar feeling told her not to do so. Instead, Toriel made a modest sounding sigh… before bending over and picking up the filthy* sweater. 

“I gave this sweater to you, for comfort. When we met, it feels like it has been such a long time ago now. When _we met_ each other, I could feel that you had not felt any comfort for a _very long time_ before you fell down. I knew or at the least: I _feared_ that you would not find any comfort beyond the doors. What I wanted to do, was to give you that comfort you needed, that you deserved.”

Toriel did her best to straighten the sagging mess out, holding the garment under its frayed sleeves. 

“While a sweater to simply protect you from the cold does not offer much, what comfort it could provide you: you would have wherever you found yourself. No matter how far you traveled, I would give you what little comfort I could for always and always and always…” 

Her attempt to fix the torn fabric would result in a sleeve with a gaping hole in it becoming no more than a gaping hole itself. Despite Toriel’s best efforts, she only made it worse. A somber sigh seeped from her.

“But now… I see that this can no longer provide you any comfort. It will only bring you discomfort, the more you force yourself to bear it.”

As she said this, the bloodied fabric stung Toriel’s claws. She had every reason and intention to let go of the thing but simply could not, even with how much it hurt to hold onto. Toriel knew how this went, she was going to have to destroy it if she wanted to ever move on. 

“Not in front of Brainz.” She thought, he did not need to see her begin her crying again over something so stupid. Toriel asked Brainz to excuse her for a moment, she needed to take the sweater to what was left of her room. 

“Huh, why, what’re you going to do?”

“I am going to dispose of this. _Broken old thing_. And find you something else to wear.” 

“What, _why-_ I mean, _no:_ you don’t gotta do _that…”_

Why did he _always_ have to argue with her? Especially when she was _actually_ doing what was best for the both of them? For a moment, it looked like Brainz about to get up from his seat, perhaps to stop Toriel as she passed him: this was not the case. Toriel would have to bend down one more time and confiscate the somehow bloodier t-shirt in front of Brainz before he could lean himself forward enough to grab it for himself. His reaction was little more than a lukewarm protest. 

“Oh _c’mon._ What am I supposed to _wear_ then, the coat on my _bare skin? Or-_ or do you wanna throw that away, too?”

Frankly, she did, but not for the same reason the sweater had to go. Toriel couldn’t destroy Rosemary’s jacket, at least not until after she told Brainz about it. 

“I have told you that I will return with a suitable replacement.”

“Like _what?”_

Toriel was not supposed to stop walking everytime Brainz retorted but she failed to fulfill this standard again. She found that she’d like to hear her answer to that question about as much as Brainz did. Brainz, of course, did not have the added anxiety of knowing that the answer was bound to stink. 

See, there was one additional (and albeit less _sentimental)_ reason Brainz received the sweater with the asymmetry and visible stitching, over something that _wasn’t_ an experiment in tailoring: nothing else would fit him. The next largest sweater Toriel reserved for her “children” was about half of Brainz’s shirt size. Sharing one of _her_ shirts would not be too bad an idea **if Toriel** **_had_ ** **any.** Toriel’s wardrobe was rather limited: she had the robe she wore when she ran away, and a makeshift bathrobe/nightgown she fabricated out of old towels… that was it. 

Brainz was not going to be too willing to slip into a bathrobe nearly twice his size; however, he probably would be _less_ willing to take the clothes off Toriel’s back. Besides, Toriel wanted to give Brainz something _clean_ to wear. What she had on right now… Well the red smears on it were not becoming any easier to ignore; **_they were still damp._ **

Truthfully, Toriel wanted to switch to that robe a hell of a lot more than Brainz was going to. He came first though: Toriel always put Brainz first. She wouldn’t let him wear a filthy* sweater for a moment more, but was fine confining herself to a robe that wasn’t in much better of a condition.

Perhaps that last line was an exaggeration on Toriel’s part: the robe was nowhere _near_ as a nasty as the filthy* sweater, _nothing_ could claim that similarity. Seriously, nothing even Brainz had came _close:_ not his boots which ceaselessly tracked dust where they stepped, not his tattered pants that were once wet with blood and now smothered with mud, not even his half-sister’s jacket which saw almost as much abuse as the sweater… Although, to be _fair,_ Rosemary’s coat did not show off nearly as much of the abuse that it had taken.

During this involuntary period of wide eyed and still extrospection, Toriel ended up appreciating just how reluctant this coat was to retain any sign that it or Brainz had been injured. While the coat looked fairly roughed up with its collection of scratches and insignificant tears, none of these damages were all that noticeable (With the exception of the bullet hole in the right shoulder). The presence of blood was greatly reduced too; while there _were_ numerous stains, they did not stand out at all. Even the product of the most recent injury had found difficulty staying on the smooth surface. This made for a peculiar little digression; the jacket really did not look _that bad…_ Brainz’s _original_ jacket looked worse and it saw _much_ less abuse.

_…_

_Right…_

  
  


“Can you not recall? I have the coat that you had fallen with.” 

“ _Huh…?”_

“Black, with a hood, red stripes?”

Brainz’s eyes squinted until they were nearly shut, then they flipped open as his head tipped backwards.

“ _Ohhhh._ You told me you threw it away, right. You were just lying to me.” 

Again, Toriel waited for Brainz to add something else; an insult would have been fine while a statement about learning to never trust her again was expected. He only recited a fact and did nothing else. Toriel’s fear of retaliation was not fulfilled here, somehow this made it feel worse. 

Instead of inadvertently trying to agitate Brainz with another apology turned excuse, Toriel would keep to the present. She would begrudge her words with a bit of a sheepish tone though.

“ _Yes._ While your jacket truly was in a rather poor condition, I had seen to it before you had awakened.”

Brainz still maintained his voice only slightly above a whisper, it complimented the strength (or the lack thereof) of his response.

“Ah, ok. Cool.” 

…

Another awkward pause came to be from Brainz’s lack of a follow up. Toriel was perturbed. 

“I am going to. _Retrieve it_ for you. Your jacket. So you will have it again… This is what you want, _yes?_ ” 

“I mean, I guess, sure-.”

With how dryly he spoke, Brainz couldn’t have seemed more indifferent even if he didn’t leave his bad shoulder out of the shrug that accompanied his answer. This only made the next part stand out more because it had actual emotion in it.

“-but do you _have to_ destroy the sweater?” 

Toriel was not ready for the sincerity. She only managed to furrow her brow before stalling completely; her mouth hung ajar from the only word that passed through.

“...P-Pardon?”

Brainz _did_ follow up this time; employing more effort to speak as ceased his slouching.

“I said, I’m fine getting my hoodie back, but do you _really_ have to destroy the sweater?” 

There was nothing unusual about the very question Brainz asked, but that he felt the need to ask it had utterly stupefied Toriel. She was unable to generate the thought required to respond to this: instead she would stammer bits and pieces of something she deduced earlier: reasons why this question made no sense. Only her last words would earn the distinction of a full sentence. 

“- you do not. Have a _need_ for it. Any longer.”

“Yeah, I know but I. I feel _bad,_ y’know li-like I _know I messed it up_ and you’re gonna tell me you don’t care about that, but like. You don’t gotta _give up on it,_ not because of _me…”_

“Brainz. _Child,_ it is only a _sweater.”_

This was a lie only to Toriel, a way to remind herself that it didn’t matter. For Brainz though, it was just incorrect.

“ **_But I like that sweater…_ **You said it was mine, please don’t get rid of it.”

  
  


…

In the benefit of everything Toriel had experienced: the irony of this should have been _blinding_ : not only was it perfect, not only was it _timely, not only_ was it in numbers, _it was_ **_personal._ **

This child fights tooth and nail and is willing to put his life at risk to **_REFUSE_ ** Toriel’s aid, she is forced to stand by and watch Brainz torture himself. _Then_ , this child puts up the same struggle to retain something from the same monster; a filthy* sweater no longer capable of providing _ANY_ help… But in this case, Brainz isn’t making nearly as much of a fuss, _and that made this SO much more difficult…_

Brainz’s endurance was not the only trait he was short of, following all his exertion; his volatile temper had died down with it. He didn’t have the energy to stir enough anger to act out against Toriel for doing something he didn’t like, or even to mask how he felt about it. His submissive state made him temporarily helpless to anything but watch Toriel carry out her deed… It would have been _comeuppance_ for what he did with her if Toriel saw the irony. 

**She didn’t.**

**She couldn’t.**

Toriel couldn’t see any of this blaring irony because all she could see: **was her child looking up to her with sadness, as she took something he liked away from him, punishment.**

Brainz still wanted his sweater, and nothing was going to change that, not even the monster who created it herself.

[For you, I will not fall down.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH2eYd4lW14)

Now that she thought about it, maybe Toriel was too quick to see a lost cause: If Brainz could see the hope in it, Toriel _definitely_ could. Toriel looked at the whole sweater one more time. The thing had been tainted by a whole lot of nastiness and suffered all those tears and holes… but it stayed in one piece until she tried to _force_ it. _It really wasn’t as bad as it first seemed though._ Even the toxic determination that stung her to the touch, lost some of its ferocity: Toriel could think of other things than _“hurt”_ while holding this sweater. 

A minute had gone by without any noise or interaction, Brainz sat and waited patiently for Toriel’s next move. The monster let out a long sigh to flush all the despair and misery out, and then she was able to turn to Brainz with the slightest smile.

“Brainz? I did not grasp that you-.” Toriel trailed for just a moment, but lit up when she found the words. “- were so _fond of_ this!” 

“...Well- n now _no-_ I mean like- I mean I don’t like it _that_ much. I just don’t wanna see it _go to waste_ because like- y-ye- _y’_ know what I mean, right?” 

Of course even in this state, Brainz wasn’t going to be totally open with Toriel. But his hesitation to answer her, with all the places his eyes darted to and the ways his fingers danced with each other, Toriel found endearing enough to serve as the real answer.

“I am _sorry_ then, Child. I did not know, and I did not anticipate that this would cause you any bother. I should have asked about your feelings before trying to carry this out and I will make certain not to make this mistake again.”

Brainz tilted his head and removed the squint from his green eye. 

“ _So,_ you’re not gonna destroy it?”

A happy little “Hmph” slipped out from Toriel, she shook her head to Brainz with her eyes closed.

“Of course not-.” Toriel started folding the garment up properly to carry over her forearm. “- I do believe that I can fix this, too.”

  
  


“ _Really?”_

Now Both of Brainz’s eyes were fully open, he also didn’t sound the least bit skeptical.

“ _Yes_ , while I am certain this will not be an easy nor a quick task to undertake, I will find my way of returning your sweater to you, looking better than before.”   
  


Brainz turned his head back straight to look at the wall, he was more occupied in thought though as he went quiet and still, mind for his deep breathing. It made Toriel worry though, there was never really a point where she _didn’t_ worry immensely for Brainz. What could have been going through his head right now: he had the entire world right on his shoulders, and it always filled any space where his future should be. He never had anything to look forward to… until he started slowly nodding his head.

“Alright…”

Toriel went still with an inaudible gasp. Brainz turned back to her.

“And you promise you won’t throw it away?”

Being she was so used to holding back tears at this point: it should not have been difficult to keep her face dry. Toriel just wasn’t used to the _other_ reason she would start crying, that’s all.

Still, she held herself together and just nodded rather excitedly to Brainz.

“With _all_ of my heart, I do.”

Of course, she also had to fight the urge to let the smile grow as big as it wanted to be. 

“Ok then, thank you.”

When Brainz gave Toriel that final nod; it was official that this was a little miracle.

Toriel was finally able to excuse herself, she was a lot more giddy to do so this time. With the sweater carefully tucked under her arm, Toriel strolled to her ransacked room and gave into the cathartic joy _bursting_ from her heart. The battle to not turn into a happy crying mess in front of Brainz shifted into being an attempt at being a _quiet_ happy crying mess in the bedroom. 

Obviously, what this did for the situation Brainz and Toriel shared part in, was just about nothing. For Brainz, it was a glimmer of light in the distance: something to stand against the ubiquitous doom and gloom. In his mind, what Toriel would do for him could be no more than a silver lining. But for the monster who couldn’t contain her happiness, this silver lining provided so much more hope than she could ever imagine. And it all had to do with the premise that out of all the times the ballad of “Suspect Omega” repeated itself; this was the very first time Brainz wanted to keep Toriel in his life. While a claim bolder than this one could not exist: Toriel felt all the confidence she needed that it was true. It was easy, because when she tried to delve into the manifold mass of eclipsing memories inside of her: never did anything come up where Toriel felt as happy as she did now. 

Now if what she believed down to her very core was true, that this current outcome was truly groundbreaking, then whatever scant predictability existed through all the previous RESETs, was gone. With no “answers”, no patterns, no constant similarities: anticipating what would happen next had never been more **_impossible._ ** Toriel was going to be in for more uncertainty than she had ever waded through in her life of hiding from the chaos… **_and that was okay!_ ** Because now, there was no more room for **_certain despair:_ **fate had not been inscribed yet and the pen was now in Toriel and Brainz’s grasps. 

The moment had to pass eventually, Brainz would probably grow concerned if Toriel took too long to get back to him. She would find it much easier to regain her composure because this time, Toriel did not have to pretend to be okay. Brainz’s sweater was put to rest atop Toriel’s mattress. (And the t-shirt more akin to a blood soaked rag was discarded without incident) From under the pile of things that used to live in the sock drawer, came the scandalous hooded jacket. 

It did feel a little strange to be giving this gloomy thing back to Brainz, as it seemed it would be too “small” for him now. While it fit him better than the once partially oversized sweater, Toriel felt that the lonely and untrusting nature of it would not suit Brainz, as he had outgrown it. Still… it was to serve as a replacement for its replacement until Toriel had the opportunity to renew Brainz’s real sweater. 

Toriel made for the hallway, ready to trek back into undisputedly uncharted lands. All she would bring with her would be knowing she was going to do the very best she could, and a jacket. 

Toriel felt another smile come upon her, seeing Brainz perk up from her return.

“Here you go, Brainz.” 

“Whew, _thanks!”_

He was keen to graciously accept his own clothing from Toriel’s gingerly outstretched arm. Brainz even accepted some help getting his wounded arm through the striped sleeve, scoffing after he thanked Toriel once more.

“Arm’s a little stiff, it’s gonna suck for a while.”

  
  


The zipper climbed up the middle of the coat and Brainz’s ominous tattoos were hidden once more. He leaned back in his chair with a content sigh and a belated shiver.

“Hoo yeah. That’s better.”

Brainz did try the hood on his coat but ultimately found he would rather keep it down for now, Toriel liked it better this way, too. 

“Is there anything further you need, child? Something to eat? Some more water?”

The good hand waved respectfully into the air.

“Mm- _nah._ I’m good, thank you though. Still getting back my bearings.” 

With that, this particular dilemma drew to a close, at least for _now._ Toriel would repeat her offer to properly heal Brainz, but later. Even though Brainz was doing better, there was no rest to be had as Toriel moved onto the next issue. 

She looked down to her arms so she could finally address the yellow child who suffered so much unrest… that Toriel failed to notice wasn’t still _in_ her arms until now. Brainz had taken up so much of her attention that all thoughts outside of him hadn’t caught up until now! 

“ _Brainz? Where_ is the child?” 

Anxiety trailed with her words.

Brainz sobered up too. 

“(Oh?) _OH…_ **_shit.”_ **

…

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...  
> "Oh wait, no. There they are."  
> Brainz pointed a finger for Toriel to follow so she could claim the relief for herself.
> 
> The yellow monster hadn't left the home at all. They were just sitting beside Undyne, watching the scene unfold in silence.
> 
> ================================================================================
> 
> I wont leave you off with a cliffhanger this time.  
> Not when we're feeling so hopeful!
> 
> Sorry this took so long (and probably is a mess), this one was really difficult to do and ended up becoming an entirely different chapter  
> than I had originally planned.


End file.
